


The One That Got Away

by TeddyTheCardioGoddess



Category: Station 19 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:08:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 61,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25573345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeddyTheCardioGoddess/pseuds/TeddyTheCardioGoddess
Summary: Surrera AU. Robert Sullivan and Andy Herrera share a teenage love, one the two high school students believe will last a lifetime. But a decision Robert makes as he steps into the real world will change the course of their young love forever. Fifteen years later, destiny somehow makes them meet once again.A love story to make movies about and write poems on.
Relationships: Andy Herrera & Robert Sullivan, Andy Herrera/Robert Sullivan
Comments: 27
Kudos: 73





	1. Chapter One - Can't Help Falling In Love

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know how to start this author's note other then by saying that I am so excited about this story. So, So excited.  
> Just a few (important!) things before you guys start to read  
> This fic will be angsty, consider yourself warned. The rating will change from T to M, I am not really sure when, but it will happen.  
> This fic has a playlist to go along with it! To listen on Youtube, just search The One That Got Away Fic Playlist (it is supposed to be public) For spotify and Apple Music, links in my twitter @SurreraFeels.  
> This fic will have a lot of flashbacks, and I think the first chapter will make you ask a lot of questions. You can shoot them my way, but if your question will be addressed in a future chapter then you will just have to wait (Sorry)  
> One last tiny thing - I know you are all waiting for a Daughter update. It will come soon, I did not leave that fic, I am just going to need a bit more time.  
> Thank you for everyone who has left love on my other two fics, I hope you will love this one just as much. I hope you will leave me your thoughts.

"The entire world is a collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her."

\- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë  
***********

October, 2003

“Do you think there is something beyond them?” Andy asks Robert as she stares into the sky. The night is unusually clear for an October in Seattle, and there is not even one cloud to block their view. The stars are spread all over, like a blanket covering the couple, protecting them from anything in the outer space that might hurt them. 

The radio plays the song Falling In Love With You, and Andy can’t help but notice Robert hums softly to the beat of the melody. 

How fitting. She really can’t help falling in love with him, with the boy who she met just a few months ago and entered her life like a thunderstorm. 

“Do you mean a heaven, a place where my parents and your mother are watching us right now? Or do you mean a place where we can meet a friendly green alien that goes by the nickname E.T?” 

If she wasn’t so mesmerized by the glow of the stars, she would have gotten up and punched him. She doesn’t want to leave this place, ever, even if she is getting chilly beneath the three layers of sweaters she wears, and the moist grass is poking at her back.

“Stop mocking me!” Andy protests. 

“Then stop being so easy to mock.” Robert returns. He lays with his head near hers, but each of their bodies goes a different direction, their faces the only thing preventing them from being one, straight line. 

“Are you going to tell me what did you mean, or are you going to stay angry with me?” 

“It is nothing. Stupid, really.” She nods her head. The music changes, from the soft tune of the words once sung by the great Elvis Presley himself into something more upbeat that Andy doesn’t recognize. 

“I won’t laugh, I promise.” 

Her fingers fidget with the grass of their front lawn, and her father will be annoyed if he comes back home after a twenty four hour shift to find the entrance to his house ruined. “Watching the stars, so big and bright and far away from us, I just can’t help but wonder if there are greater things than us in this universe. If our purpose is just to live and to die and to be a part of the circle of life.” 

“You need more meaning.” He doesn’t ask, but states, and she nods, even if she is not sure he can see her. “I felt the same right after my parents died. I couldn’t understand who decided their time was up, that they had enough. There is so much evil in this world, and yet someone up there decides to take two of the best ones. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around it.”

“Did you find any?” 

“You promise you won’t laugh?” He makes her swear on the same thing he had just given his word for. 

“Never.” 

“I think the purpose of existing is having this one, true, big love story. So many of the people who history remembers were driven by the great and devastating power of love. Cleopatra and Antony. Romeo and Juliet. Hemingway and Gellhorn. Cash and Carter. My parents. I think the purpose of life is to find yourself just one of those big love stories, and the rest will take care of itself.”

“You are aware that Romeo and Juliet were a fictional couple, and a dumb one, to say the least.” She makes a comment, and rises herself up to a sitting position. 

“I just love how you manage to miss the point of everything I say.” Her heart skips a beat for a moment when she hears him note one thing he loves about her. 

“Do you have someone in mind? You know, for your great, epic, love story. The one movies will be made about and will inspire authors to write poems.” Andy bites her lower lip in anticipation as he rises as well. They are so close, their lips almost touching, and she can smell that body spray he seems to love so much for an unknown reason.

Andy will be lying to herself if she said she didn’t dream about this moment, the moment they might finally, finally, become more than friends. 

The blanket of stars above them makes the moments somewhat magical. 

“I am just eighteen, didn’t even graduate high school yet. You know, my entire life is still in front of me.” 

Andy drops her gaze to the floor, accompanied with a soft “Oh” coming from her lips. 

Robert places his palm lightly against her cheek, and it is warm and comforting. “But I have learnt that time has no meaning in this world. You think you have decades, and then you learn the hard way that life can be cut short in a moment. And I have met a girl in school this year.” 

“Really, who is she?” Andy asks, even if by now she is absolutely sure he is talking about her. 

“She is gorgeous, has the most beautiful smile and the most wise brown eyes I have ever seen. She is my best friend. She challenges me, keeps me on my toes all the time, makes me want to be a better version of myself for her. She makes me feel calm and hopeful, feelings it didn’t occur to me I could feel for two long years. And I think I am falling in love with her.” 

Andy looks at him in anticipation and says “I am sure she wouldn’t mind if you decided to kiss her right now.” 

And just like that, his lips are on hers. Their kiss is soft and quick, yet it sends an electric current all over her body nonetheless. Before she knows it, the kiss is over. 

Her first kiss. Their first kiss. 

“You should really improve your kissing techniques.” Robert mocks her again as he drops his back into the grass. She knows he isn’t trying to embarrass her, but there is a blush crawling up her cheeks regardless of his pure intentions. 

“You can teach me, you know.” She suggests boldly, and it is quite unlike her. Being in his presence makes her do that. He makes her want to live outside of the box she has kept herself in, makes her bold and audacious. 

“Oh, believe me when I say this has become my number one top priority. I am tagging it urgent in my mind.” 

“Stop being so clever, or else I wouldn’t want to kiss you anymore.” Andy lies back next to him. He takes her hand in his and interlaces their fingers.

For some inexplicable reason, this small gesture makes butterflies fly all over in her belly. Or maybe it is the fact that she is finally, finally, as close to him as she had wanted to be since the moment she caught a glimpse of the new and mysterious senior walking down her high school halls. 

“Do you know anything about the stars?” She asks after a long while of silence. For some reason, they all seem brighter now, after he had kissed her. 

“I can’t point at the constellations. I don’t know where The Big Dipper is, or Cassiopeia. I think my knowledge in astronomy is limited to our solar system.” 

“Well, I don’t think we can see them from here.” Andy guesses. “I think you can only see those planets on very special nights . But we can always make it up as we go.” 

“This is Venus.” Robert points straight above them, to a small star, which shines relatively bright against the darkness. “The roman goddess of love and beauty. Just like you.” 

“Enough with the compliments. I am going to continue kissing you anyway.” Andy scolds. 

“I am just stating the facts.” Robert shrugs. “Now you go.” He points to the right of the star they were looking at. That start is bigger, but doesn’t loom quite as much light.

“I think this is Jupiter.” She says the first name that comes into her mind, and the one she knows a thing or two about. It sometimes feels like he outsmarts her. He is older, and life has thrown some harsh events his way, yet he kept coming out stronger on the other side. “King of the gods, god of the sky and thunder.” She thinks a bit, then says. “I am pretty sure we got it wrong.” 

“You know, it doesn’t matter. From now on, every time I will look at the night sky and see two stars, they can always be Venus and Jupiter. They can always remind me of this moment.” 

“Venus and Jupiter.” She says it back to him. 

They lie there, on the wet grass, watching the night sky, for another hour or so, until her eyelids get heavy and she has to call it a night. 

For some reason, he can’t stop humming that song to her the entire time. 

“Take my hand, take my whole life, too. For I can't help falling in love with you.” 

*************  
September 2004

It rains heavily that day. 

Andy lived in Washington her entire life, so she is well aware that the weather in this particular state is not as welcoming as it is in sunny California. 

It rains more often than not in Seattle, but the rain today feels different.

Like someone up there sheds the tears she is doing everything in her power to keep at bay. 

She refuses to cry. He has made his decision, and she knows from endless conversations and countless hours spent begging and requesting, that he will not change his mind. 

There is nothing left for her other than to be proud of him. Proud of the man he is going to be. Fighting for their country, avenging the death of his parents. 

She is trying to be the supportive girlfriend, the one to tell the boy she loves to go ahead and fulfill himself, even when the place where he has to go is almost seven thousand miles away from her. 

So why does it feel as if the moment his hand lets go of hers, her heart will shatter to a million pieces? 

They walk hand in hand inside the crowded train station, trying to stay dry and find cover from the rain. 

The station is busy in that hour of morning, people commuting on their way to work or to spend a nice day exploring what the city has to offer. The noise of chatter is deafening, strangers coming and leaving, each to their own direction. 

Andy wants to scream at them. How can you go on with your life, like nothing is happening, when the man she loves is about to leave her and no one knows when she will see him again. Or if she sees him again. The thought is unavoidable. The image of herself crying over a coffin wrapped in a striped and starred flag invading her mind's eye. 

She tries to shake the thought out of her head, tries to tell herself that everything will be fine, he will come back to her safe and sound, even if it takes a little while. 

He is enlisting in the middle of a war. He said that was a calculated risk he had to take, but why does she have to take the risk of losing him? 

“Are you OK?” Andy asks, her voice breaking. 

Don’t cry. This is hard enough on him as it is. Don’t make it worse. 

“As much as I can be.” Robert tries to reassure her. He drops his duffel bag, which contains a little amount of objects, the sum of them is his entire belongings, to the floor. Her boyfriend wraps his arms tightly around her, and if they were in any other situation, she would have yelled in a choked voice that he is suffocating her. 

But right now, she wishes to freeze this moment, even if the way she is pressed against his body makes it difficult for her to fill her lungs with oxygen. 

“You know I have to go.” He tries to explain one more time, even if he knows she will never understand why he has to leave her and put his life on the line. “I have to do this. To figure out what kind of man I am. To make sure the people who murdered my parents, and with them took almost three thousand more lives, get what they deserve. Each and every one of these victims were all someone’s child, someone’s sibling, someone’s parent. There is no one who will do this if not me.” 

“And you have to do this without me. Becoming the man you ought to be.” 

She feels everything. She is angry at him for leaving her. She is sad, and she is hurt to a point her tummy turns and she feels like she is about to throw up.

“Andy…” He whispers her name softly, for what might as well be the last time, his fingers caressing her right cheek gently. “You have the brightest future in front of you. You have your father, and Ryan, and you are only seventeen years old. This city is waiting for you to conquer it. Me, on the other hand… This has never been my city. My city changed to a point it can no longer be recognized three years ago. And I have to go and try to make the people who made my city bleed pay.” 

She nods, and he wraps her back into his comforting embrace. 

They stand there in the middle of the train station for a few long minutes, a girl at the end of adolescence, and a boy whose choices will make him an adult in no time at all. Two teenagers who share a love story bigger than most seniors can say they have had in the span of a lifetime. 

A love story to make movies about and write poems on. 

As his train arrives at the station, she lifts her head off of his chest and kisses him softly. They are surrounded by plenty of people, yet the kiss is intimate as if they were alone again, at the safety of her own bedroom. 

“You should really improve your kissing techniques.” Robert whispers softly. He had said that to her on the night of their first kiss, and ever since, with every kiss, soft or passionate, he had reminded her of that sentence once again.

“Maybe you can teach me.” Andy answers, as always. 

Robert sneaks a glance at his watch, then picks up his belongings off of the floor. His train is about to leave, and he has to go. 

Their time is up. The most beautiful year of her short life has come to an end. 

“I will write to you.” He promises. “I will try and call and come and visit when it is allowed.” He tries to smile at her, but she can see this is not one of the genuine smiles he sneaks her way whenever he believes she doesn’t notice. 

She has learnt to read him quite well this past year, too well, actually. There is sadness in his eyes, but she can see a little amount of anticipation in them as well. 

It is an adventure for him, yet a disaster for her. 

Andy stands on the tiptoes of her old, worn out converse shoes, as he places a soft kiss on her forehead. 

“I was so lucky I couldn’t help but fall in love with you.” Those are the last words he has for her, before turning around and walking toward the train. 

Andy steps outside to the pouring rain, mumbles to herself as if she was possessed. “Please don’t go. Please stay.” She watches him as he climbs to his assigned car, and sends her a last look and a wave. 

The words she mumbles change to “I love you”, and she keeps saying them as if they were part of a prayer, over and over again, until the train moves and finally disappears out of her sight. 

Then the dam in her eyes finally opens and all hell lets loose. 

Andy falls to her knees, her jeans getting wet from the puddle she just landed in. She cries and cries, until she has a headache, probably induced by dehydration, and there is nothing left in her tear ducts for her to let out. Her mouth feels dry, like sandpaper, and there is a shiver running up and down her spine. 

Andy doesn’t know how much time has passed by, before she feels a familiar hand on her shoulder. 

And for a moment she thinks he changed his mind. Maybe he hasn’t left her. Maybe he decided to return. There is a spark of hope that lights inside of her, which is put down quickly as she remembers this can’t be. 

She watched him walking away from her. 

“Ryan.” She says the name of her friend, who looks at her sympathetically. 

She is a hot mess, and she is soaked to her bones. 

Her childhood friend helps her get up from the hard floor, and carries her to a place they can find a bit of shelter from the rainstorm still raging. She doesn’t have the power in her to walk without him supporting her. 

“He left, didn’t he?” Ryan asks, and when Andy nods in approval, he hugs her tightly, never caring she is getting him completely wet. 

“I will wait for him.” Andy declares. “It can be one year, or five, or a decade for all that I am concerned. I will wait for him, and he will be back, oneday. Someday.” 

“Of course you will wait for him.” Ryan doesn't doubt. Even as her heart is shattered into a million small pieces, there is still a place in her broken soul to appreciate her best friend for being there for her, as the young man she loves is gone. 

“Now come on.” Ryan places a hand on the small of her back, coaxing her to get out of the train station. She knows that the moment she leaves, the moment she is back into the rash of the city, it all will be real. 

He left her, and didn’t look back. 

“We will get you a set of dry clothes, and something hot to drink, and you will feel much better while you are waiting for him to return.”


	2. The One That Got Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!  
> Thank you so much for reading!  
> I knew that there will be a lot of questions about this one, so I will try to answer them. If your question hasn't been answered, then it will be a part of the story sooner or later.   
> Yeah, I changed Andy and Robert's ages. Andy is a little bit older than she is on the show (she was 14 on 9\11, not 12) and Robert is a lot younger than he is on the show. I obviously had to make them about the same age so they can go to high school together.   
> Yes in this story Sullivan's parents died on 9\11 (which doesn't make sense on the show, but it works in this story), and yes the playlist is for the entire story. I have the playlist on Spotify, Apple Music and Youtube, and the links are still pinned in my twitter.   
> I made two more big changes, but you will read it in this chapter.   
> I know that there is a popular demand to have the boys show around more both in this story and in Daughter. I will try to make it happen.   
> I think this is it, I hope you enjoy and leave me your thoughts!

"In another life  
I would make you stay  
So I don't have to say  
You were the one that got away  
The one that got away"

-The One That Got Away, by Katy Perry. 

*************

August 2003 

“Planet earth calling Andy Herrera.” Andy hears Ryan calling her name, weaving his hand in front of her face to catch her attention. 

“Uh? What?” She asks as she blinks, trying to gather her focus back to her best friend, who sits across from her at their usual cafeteria table. 

“Close your mouth, Andy. Otherwise a fly might just get in there.” Ryan teases her. She tries to tear her eyes away, but she can’t, there is something about him that just makes it impossible for her to look away. Ryan passes her a clean napkin, and only then she looks back at him, confused. “You have a little bit of drool in the corner of your mouth.”

“Very funny.” She tosses the napkin back at him, then finally takes the first bite out of her sandwich. 

“You know this is the first thing you have said to me since the moment he walked in here ten minutes ago, right?”

“No way.” She denies. Did she really freeze for ten whole minutes, mesmerized by the look of the new student? “You know I am only talking to you right now so you will spill whatever you know about him, right?” 

“I am so grateful to be your best friend.” Ryan rolls his eyes. 

“Come on, Detective Ryan, I know you know something.” Andy is relentless. She loves Ryan, she does, he has been like a brother to her since she can remember herself, the two practically growing up together, inseparable. 

He is her best friend, but in the last few years he turned out to be quite an asset. For some strange reason Andy can’t really wrap her head around, he always knows everything first. He always listens, always observes, always connects the dots before anyone else has a chance to realize what is happening. 

“Only if you will admit that I am the best friend you have ever had.” He faces her with an ultimatum. 

“Of course you are.” 

It is nothing but the truth. Each of them had a few different friends as the years have gone by, but none of them really stuck around.

By the first day of sophomore year of high school Andy and Ryan have been through everything together. Through the thick and thin, highs and lows. It seems like there is nothing that can break the two apart. A bond forged by the power of loss and tragedy. 

“All I know is that he is a senior. He seems kind of quiet, people said he didn’t talk too much, didn’t want to tell where he was from or why did he transfer in the beginning of his last year. Kind of a loner, if you ask me.” 

“A cute one.” She whispers to herself. Unfortunately, her comment doesn’t go unnoticed by Ryan, who smirks at her knowingly. 

“Do you have a new crush, Andy?” He asks. She is about to deny with everything she has got in her, but the blush that creeps up her face gives her away. “Well, sorry to disappoint, but it seems like every girl in the school thinks the same way as you.” 

She looks around the room, her eyes scanning the entire dining area length and width, and she is not surprised to realize her observant friend was right once again.

The cafeteria is full, as she remembers it to be from every lunch break she had had last year. Yet something about today is different. It is their first day back, a day when usually the noise is overwhelming, with conversations about the occurrences of the summer vacation and the hopes and dreams for the school year that just started. 

However, there is only the monotone sound of men speaking to each other, even if women are usually known to do the majority of the talking. Her eyes drift upon every single table, and the girls are definitely present in the room, yet could also be on another planet for all that it matters. 

It seems as if every single one of the girls in the room looks straight at the mysterious, tall student, whom they know absolutely nothing about. They are all fixated, from the oldest senior to the youngest freshmen. 

“Good luck defeating them.” Ryan says. He means no harm, Andy knows that much. She is sure all he cares about is her happiness, doesn’t want to see her coming out of the other side of things heartbroken, but his lack of belief in her still pains her. 

She knows she is not the most beautiful girl around the school. She is not the smartest or the funniest, but once, just once in her lifetime she wants to have someone who thinks she might be worthy of his attention after all. 

“Yeah, you are probably right.” She agrees quietly, her appetite completely gone now. She dismantles her lunch into pieces, using her plastic fork to roll them over and over again in the box until the bell finally rings, calling them back each into their own classroom. 

“What do you have next?” Ryan asks, not mentioning the fact she had sat soured face for the remainder of their lunch break. 

“English.” She answers dryly, picking her backpack and hanging it on her left shoulder. 

“I have math.” He points out, even though she didn’t ask. She can’t stay angry at him for long, not when she knows he will stop by the front of her house later that day, with that knowing smile she just can’t help but return. 

But she can sure as hell be mad at him until then. 

Andy walks into the hallway, throwing whatever is left of her half eaten meal into the trash can. She makes her way through the corridor, packed with students to a point she feels like she can’t breathe, the amount of bodies, each headed a different direction, suffocating her. 

She can’t help but let her mind drift once again to the words Ryan just said earlier. Even he, the one person who knows her best, knows her from the inside out, her flaws and her strengths, can’t fathom a case where another boy chooses her over every other girl out there. 

She feels pathetic, and furious, and as if her blood is boiling inside her veins, so she doesn’t notice when some other student reaches their leg out, purposely or not, and makes her trip over. 

“Shit.” She murmurs quietly. As if her first day back at school could have gone any worse than it already did. It was not a gracious fall, not by a long shot, but neither was it the kind of fall that will stain her jeans with blood. 

But it is her last straw, the one that makes her want to stay seated on the dirty high school floor and never get up. She thinks this first day might predict how this entire year is going to unfold. 

Then she sees a hand reached out for her, and everything changes. 

Andy lifts her head up, and sees him smiling at her. Tall, mysterious guy. And maybe now it is her chance to learn his name, to stop calling him by this very generic nickname. 

“Thank you.” Andy says, taking the hand offered to her and lifts herself off of the floor. 

“No problem. Now, can I ask you for something in return?” The boy asks. Andy nods, unable to say a word, as if her own tongue was swallowed along with her fall. “I have been spinning around myself for five minutes straight already, trying desperately to find where my English class is taking place . Do you have any idea where room E10 might be?” 

“I am actually headed right that way, if you want to tag along. It is not too far away from here, actually.” She offers, finally able to form a complete sentence.   
He is even more handsome up close, his smile is warm and comforting, his eyes deep. 

She will probably be able to stare into his eyes forever. 

God, please make her steady on her feet. If she falls down once again, or stutters when she tries to talk, she will probably die of mortification. 

They walk together silently, until she finally breaks the silence. “I am Andrea. But everyone calls me Andy.” 

“Robert.” His smile widens. “I am new around here.” 

“I figured.” What can she say? That she has been staring at him from afar for at least fifteen minutes? “As you can tell, there is no one else in here late for their first class of the year, walking around themselves confused by the corridors. Well, unless you are a freshman, which I believe you are not. ” 

“I am a senior.” He admits. 

“So, Robert, what brings you here?” She tries, even as Ryan’s words run through her mind. He is not the person who shares information about himself easily. 

“To high school? You know, I kind of have to be here. I still want to graduate.” He raises a brow in her direction. 

Witty. This is a characteristic she never thought will attract her in men. Well, not until today, anyway. 

“This is you.” Andy points to the direction of the closed door, his class has obviously started without him. He is about to thank her and leave her at that, but there is something inside of her that is determined to prove Ryan wrong. 

She can be friends with him, for the very least. 

“Robert,” She says his name, and his head is turned quickly. “I know it is not very cool to hang out with someone who is younger than you, but if you ever prefer to have company during meals, you can come and sit with my friend Ryan and I. I promise you we won’t bite.” 

Andy bites her bottom lip in anticipation for his answer. “Thank you. For the invitation, and for showing me the way. I think you are the first person who has actually been nice to me the entire day. Everyone else just stared at me like I was some caged animal at a zoo.” 

“Welcome to Washington High, Robert. It sucks.” Andy smiles at him, and heads just a couple of doors down the hallway into her own class. 

She sneaks in as quietly as possible, sitting down at the only open spot left down at the very back. 

Not that she cares, because as her teacher goes on and on about Wuthering Heights, Andy daydreams about the possibility of her own love story, with a young man she just crossed paths with for the first time not even five minutes ago. 

*******   
Present day, August 2019 

Just fifteen more minutes. 

Just fifteen more minutes until she gets to pack her belongings, change her uniform into jeans and T shirt and walk out the door and slide into the covers of her comfortable bed in her room in Maya’s apartment. 

Andy fidgets with the two bars on her collar, still trying to adjust to the new title she has been carrying around for only a week. Captain Andrea Herrera. 

It has been only a week since Battalion Chief Ripley promoted her, called her the most qualified person for the job, even if she screwed up a bit along the way. He trusted her enough to grant her the job she has been dreaming of, has been preparing for every day since she was a seven years old girl running around the station, helping her dad to fold fire hoes and stealing his helmet when he wasn’t looking. And she is going to prove him right, just as she promised him when he gave her the promotion. 

Just fifteen minutes more, and then she will be out of here. 

Andy presses her palms to her eyes, trying to concentrate on the papers she has to sign and approve by Monday. She is exhausted, every muscle in her body aches, her head is throbbing, and she thinks she might be coming down with some kind of a virus. 

As she decides that trying to concentrate is a lost cause, Andy stares at the time changing on the screen of her phone, the offensive light doing nothing to ease her migraine. 

Only five more minutes left. 

And then she gets a text, saying that a four alarm fire just turned to a five alarm. The address is far, way back at the other side of the city, an area where their station barely gets to. Thinking about it, she can’t recall being there in the last year or so. But it is a five alarm after all, an all hands on deck situation. Even the hands of a shift of firefighters who worked for twenty four hours straight and couldn’t seem to catch a break. 

Andy runs out of her office, just in time to see her entire shift members making their way through the door.

“Change of plans.” Andy yells from afar, and they all turn around to face her. Their expressions shift from confused to tired, then angry, all in a span of no more than five seconds. 

“No way.” Jack protests, the first to wrap his head around the notion that he is not going home to do some much necessary daytime drinking. 

“There is a five alarm fire spreading across the city. Everyone get dressed as fast as possible and let’s go.” 

Everyone huffs and grants, but does as she bids anyway, even though they do it unwillingly. In less than three minutes, every firefighter of shift A is ready, and they are on their route, headed towards a fire probably burning strong for hours on end. 

Andy sits in the captain seat inside the engine, while Maya drives by her side. It will take her time to adjust to this being her spot, her place, one that she doesn’t have to share with anyone else. One that she earned. 

“Ripley is probably going to be there.” Andy mumbles. Her hands are desperate for something to fidget with, something to keep them occupied and keep her mind off of the fact that both herself and her team members are probably not at the top of their game. They are worn out and tired, being on endless amounts of small calls during the day. They have been in and out of the station so many times she stopped counting. 

Yet she has to prove herself, prove that Ripley did not make a mistake appointing her to be the captain over Jack or anyone else. She has to do her best, even if she feels her body becoming weaker by the minute and a cold starting to form in her sinuses. 

She is definitely coming down with something, the stress of the new job finally taking a toll on her body. 

The rest of the drive goes by quietly, as Andy goes through the list of orders she has to give in her mind, making sure she forgets absolutely nothing. 

When they finally arrive at the scene, the aid car and ladder just behind them, all hell lets loose. There is a thick layer of smoke covering everything, making it hard to breathe even for them, who are still quite far from the source itself. 

“Nineteen.” Ripley calls them from afar, and they all rush to take his orders. “We have been battling this fire for over five hours now. We are dealing with a fire in a pile of titanium shavings. There was a massive explosion, some of the workers show severe burns.” Ripley briefs, serious as always. 

Andy can see him glaring meaningfully at Hughes, and Andy can’t forget Vic’s stories about the attitude she has thrown in the way of a man who outranks her. 

“Herrera.” Ripley calls her name. “I bet you know what to do. I trust you to show me I wasn’t wrong.” 

“Yes, sir.” Andy nods, and he disappears into the chaos surrounding them. Andy hands out orders shortly, makes sure everyone knows exactly the task they have on hand. 

She takes a quick look around, observing her surroundings. She can see a few civilians getting their injuries checked near an aid car in the far corner. There is a wave of firefighters from every station in the city coming in and going out, begging for air, dirty and sweaty. 

And then her eyes fall on him. A ghost from her past, someone who does not belong in the view. 

Her vision goes completely black for a moment, and she is struggling to breathe, even though she did not inhale any smoke. 

It has been fifteen whole years since the day she last saw him. He has aged, has grown up to be even more handsome than she remembers him to be, from what little she can catch standing a safe distance away from him. He has gotten even taller, and she can see a set of broad shoulders beneath his coat, which says Station 88 at the back of it. 

She can’t tear her eyes away from him. 

He is back. Her Robert. 

“Andy, is everything alright? You look pale.” Maya asks, her voice filled with concern. Andy didn’t even notice her best friend standing right beside her, and she can’t find the words to reassure her worries. Maya catches the general direction Andy is looking at quickly, catches a sight of the man Andy stares at. 

“Sullivan, Station 88.” Maya reads. “Who is he?” 

She can’t answer. Her mouth is dry like she has been walking in the desert for at least two days with no water. There is a single, fat tear rolling down Andy’s cheek, one that she is not able to reach a finger to and wipe away. 

And then he turns around to watch her. Their eyes meet for a second, and even though he is still quite far, she can see everything in them. Their friendship, the great love they had shared. The great pain he had left her with when he decided to follow his cause and his reasons. 

It takes him no more than a minute to disconnect, to disappear behind the screen of smoke and fire. 

“Maya, tell Jack to take command.” Andy orders. She is left rooted in her place, her feet numb, her legs not able to move. 

She feels the panic attack coming, the shortness of breath caused by the news slammed upon her shoulders with not even a warning. 

“Andy.” She hears her name again coming softly from Maya, who places a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Gibson will take care of everything. Do you want to tell me who is he?” 

And how can she answer that? He is the love of her life. Her first kiss, her first time, her first heartbreak. He is the man she imagined being with at eighty, while she was barely seventeen.

Finally, she settles on. “He is the one that got away.” 

Maya doesn’t ask anything further, and Andy is grateful for both of her lieutenants for taking commend while she feels the world closing off upon her. 

As the fire department finally manages to gain control over the fire, their team is being dismissed. Andy sits silently the entire ride back to the station, her mind drifting back to a place fifteen years back, and she tries to hold the tears at bay with every bit of self control she has.

As soon as they arrive back, the moon and stars shine high up in the sky already, Andy runs into the toilet and gets down on her knees. She throws up, her stomach turning, her throat filled with an acidic taste. Maya arrives to hold her hair and press a cool washcloth against her forehead, and says nothing. 

***********

Robert can feel someone watching his back. He turns around quickly, setting aside the task at hand for a short moment. 

And then he sees her. 

Their eyes meet, and everything comes back to him. 

His first true love. The way she had to stand on the tiptoes of her worn out converse shoes to kiss him. The long, lonely nights in Iraq he would lie awake, his only comfort was imagining her warm naked body lying against him.

God, he was so sure he would come back for her back then. 

She looks exactly the same, just fifteen years older, and he couldn’t have forgotten her even if he tried. And he tried. 

He remembers her curves, and the way she used to make him dance when it was just the two of them. The way she used to always miss the point of what he was saying. The way her lips curled up after saying that she loves him. 

His Andy. 

It takes everything he has to disconnect, to tear his eyes away from her and to go back to the mission of getting this fire under control. 

In another life, he would have stayed. In another life, he would have approached her. 

In this life though, he is just the one that got away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, just imagine Andy didn't screw up as bad and Reply believed in her enough to give her the captain job.   
> Hope you liked it!


	3. Chatper 3 - Drops of Jupiter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!  
> First of all, thank you for reading and leaving your thoughts! Means so much to me. If you have any questions, please ask. I might answer them in the a\n in the next chapter, and if I don't, know that they will be answered further along in the story.  
> This is kind of a warning but not really- just wanted to let you know, this story will be discussing sex between young Robert and young Andy, not in details but I will write about it. So if this is something that might bother you, consider skipping this story all together (everything with consent of course!)  
> I am changing the rating as well.  
> That's it, hope you enjoy and leave me your thoughts!

"And tell me, did Venus blow your mind?  
Was it everything you wanted to find?  
And did you miss me while you were  
Looking for yourself out there?"

-Drops of Jupiter by Train 

******************

July 2004

“Stop touching it!” Andy protests, trying to move away from Robert unsuccessfully. “You will get it infected!”

Robert’s fingers trail the ends of her new tattoo, done only two days ago. He goes in circles along the lines that make the shape of Venus on the back of her leg, softly outlining the form of the planet. 

Andy has taken good care of her new body art, and she won’t let it get red and sensitive just because her boyfriend can’t keep his hands to himself. “Are you taking care of yours like the tattoo artist told us to?” She inquires, raising a brow in his direction. 

“Yes, mom.” He answers, and she tosses one of the throw pillows from the sofa they are sitting on straight in the direction of his head. 

“Will your mom be doing this?” Andy asks playfully, as she crawls her way across the sofa to where Robert half sits, half lies down on his back. She takes his face in her hands and places a long kiss on his lips, lets her tongue roll around with his, fighting over control. 

“Well, my mom is not alive anymore, but if she was here, she definitely wouldn’t be doing this. And just so you know, you are still a terrible kisser.” Robert laughs as Andy finds a new spot to sit in, leaning her back against Robert's naked abdomen. “It’s like no matter how much I try, you learn absolutely nothing. I might need you to kiss me a couple more times, just to make sure you understand what I am trying to teach you.” 

He is wearing a pair of jeans, but Andy can visualize the tattoo Robert has on his body. The shape of Jupiter, a perfect match for the Venus she carries on her own leg. “I am sorry about mentioning your mom. Sometimes I say things that I wish I could take back.” 

“That’s fine.” Robert reassures. “It still hurts to talk about them, but it has been almost three years since that day, and sometimes it feels like the pain starts to fade away a bit, just around the edges. I keep wondering if in fifteen years from now, anything from this pain that I feel every time I think about them will even exist.” He sighs, and interlaces their fingers. 

They are both silent for a moment, each caught in their own thought about the mother they will never see again. “I just wish you could have met them. They would have loved you almost as much as I do, I have no doubt about that.” 

“You got to meet my dad though.” Andy tries to lift the cloud of sadness that settled around their shoulders when they thought about the parents they have lost so early in life. 

“Yeah, and he absolutely hates me.” Robert argues. 

“No he doesn’t.” Andy tries to reassure him. “He just hates the idea of me having a boyfriend. I have never dated anyone before, and then suddenly I bring back home a guy, with whom I am not only in a serious relationship, but he is also two years older than me. I think that up until that moment, he actually believed I never talked to any other boy other than Ryan, let alone date someone.” 

“Well, unless you have a pile of boyfriends lying around somewhere that I know nothing about, I am the only boyfriend you have. Your dad hating the idea of you having a boyfriend, just means he hates the idea of me.” 

“Well, he will get over it. I am sure he will learn to love you. Or at the very least get used to the idea of your existence. Just give him some time, and the passive aggressiveness will pass.” Andy shrugs, then bites down on her tongue. The words slipped away from her mouth again without her giving them a second thought. 

Suddenly, the elephant in the room is big and present, even when the both of them spent the entire day, the entire summer, trying to ignore the way their hearts clenches every time they think about that particular subject. 

Andy shifts, suddenly uncomfortable in the arms of the boy she loves, and she tries to pull away from him, yet he notices the way she tries to distance herself away easily. 

Of course he does. 

“Babe, talk to me.” Robert coaxes. He kisses the top of her head, then breaths in the scent of her shampoo. 

Andy takes a deep breath, then asks the question that she has been carrying around ever since he told her that he is going to enlist, a question so heavy that sometimes she feels like she has been carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. “What do you think will happen to us once you leave?” 

Robert closes his eyes, trying to savor the here and now before he absolutely has to think about the uncertainties the future holds for the young couple. “I don’t know.” He admits, powerless against the plans the universe has for the two lovers. “So many things can happen. But I know this. I will come back for you. I will not give up on you, on us. And I do know that as long as I can see the stars, as long as I can see Jupiter and Venus, in the night sky or on my own skin, I will think about you. No matter where I am, or where you are, or in what direction this life will carry each of us.” 

His words echos through her living room way after they have already been said and done. They linger in her mind, find a place deep in her heart, and for the first time since she heard him say “I am leaving”, she has faith that they are going to survive this. 

“You are very smooth with your words, Robert Sullivan.” Andy smiles. “If I am not careful, I might end up falling in love with you.” 

“I love you, Andy Herrera.” He whispers into the top of her head and kisses it again. Andy turns around to kiss him softly, only to notice the time, showing rudely on the clock just above her head, teasing her. 

Reminding her painfully how her time with him slips between her fingers. 

“Shit.” Andy murmurs quietly. “My dad is going to be home every minute. I need to change. I need to wear something that is not your shirt and a thong.” Andy jumps off the sofa, and starts to pace around the living room back and forth, over and over again, as if a ghost has possessed her body. 

“I don’t see anything wrong with you wearing nothing but my shirt and a thong. Well, unless you want to go back to wearing nothing.” Robert makes an inappropriate suggestion, still resting in his spot on the sofa. 

“How can you not do anything about it? Do you know what is going to happen if he walks in and he sees you shirtless, and me wearing your shirt?” Andy runs her fingers through her hair in an attempt to look a little bit less like she has actually rolled between the sheets of her bed with her boyfriend not too long ago. 

“What does he think that we are doing?”

“I don’t know, but I am pretty sure he doesn’t think about his sixteen years old girl having sex. And to be honest, I am not sure I want my father to think of us having sex.” Andy can only imagine Pruitt’s reaction to finding out exactly what Robert and her are doing under his roof when he is gone to a 24 hours shift. Andy nods her head vigorously, trying to shake that particular image away from her mind. “No, I definitely prefer to keep him in the dark about this particular subject. And besides, I need to put on some pants. He will kill me if he sees the tattoo.” 

“Well, it was your idea. Own up to it.” Robert suggests. 

“Have you ever tried to own up to something against my dad?” Andy huffs. They have known each other for almost a year, have been together for nine months now, and yet sometimes it feels like he doesn't listen to what she has to say half of the time. 

Boys. 

“If he finds out, I am taking you down with me.” Andy promises. “If you think he doesn’t like you now, just wait to see what will happen when I will convince him you made me get a tattoo.” Andy smiles slyly in his direction. 

She is about to make her way to her bedroom when Robert holds on to her wrist softly. “At least let me come with you. You know, to help you change.” He begs, and if Andy wasn’t painfully aware of his ulterior motive, she might have even found it cute. 

“No way.” Andy nods her head, trying to keep a serious face and not melt into a paddle by the sweet, innocent look he gives her. “I know what you want, Robert, and if my dad finds us making out half naked in my bedroom he is going to physically disassemble the door to my bedroom.” He looks at her again with that look that usually makes her kiss him sweetly, but she has to be strong against the magic he works on her. “You had me to yourself for twenty four hours while he was on a shift. Time is up. Sorry.” She shrugs. 

Robert lets out an unsatisfied huff, as he sees Andy taking off her shirt. He sits up straight, thinking for a moment that she may have gotten around and today is his lucky day. 

Then he feels that same shirt landing on his head, completely blocking his view, soaked in the scent of her. “Now put this on while I am getting dressed, and we can pretend we spend the entire day watching movies or something.” 

****************

Present Day

Any looks up at the big sign reading the number 88. She thumps her foot down nervously, still debating if she should really enter, even after she has made her way all across the city to get here. 

The feeling is weird, almost as if she is wearing the skin of another woman. Or maybe she is trying to fit in her own skin, and yet it is fifteen years too young for her sizes. 

She closes her eyes shut, takes a deep breath in, then releases the air out of her lungs. After repeating the process a few times, which does absolutely nothing to calm her frantically racing heartbeat, she makes those steps into the station. 

It looks similar to her own work place, and by the reception desk sits a bored firefighter who looks around her age. 

“Can I help you with something, miss?” He asks, a warm, greeting smile spreading across his face. She doesn’t correct him, making him call her by the right title. Captain. The thought of coming down here wearing her full uniform crossed her mind for a second, just in order to shine some kind of authority, but she passed on that idea.

The less people know who she is, the better. 

“Is Sullivan here?” Andy asks. A part of her hopes that the answer of the friendly fire fighter will be no, and she can go back to her life. A part of her wants to believe she has imagined him all along, that he was an illusion, a creation of her own mind. 

Yet another part of her still longs for him, even after all those years. Longs to meet him, longs to hear his comforting voice, longs for him to kiss her like they have said goodbye fifteen hours ago, or fifteen days ago. A part of her wants him to hug her tightly, like the way he used to do, just before she would complain that he is suffocating her, and wants him to say that it hasn’t been fifteen whole years since the time she last saw him in that train station. 

Because it can’t be. 

“Do you have a name? Just so I can let him know who is asking for him.” Andy shakes her head, trying to get rid of the memories invading her mind, uncalled for. 

“Can you just tell him that there is someone for him?” Andy requests. She can’t explain it, but there is a little, insecure voice inside her head telling her that if he knows that this is her who waits for him, he might not want to see her. He might not want to have anything to do with her at all. 

The fire fighter nods at her, and she can still hear him as he shouts “Hey Sullivan! There is a pretty lady who asks to see you!”

Andy smooths an invisible wrinkle in her dress as she waits to see him walking toward her. The Venus shapes tattoo at the back of her leg itches, yet she doesn’t reach a hand to relieve the uncomfortable sensation. 

Then he walks toward her. 

The sight of him does something to her, deep in the pit of her stomach. She is attracted to him, as attracted to him as she was sixteen years ago, when she was just a high school student staring longingly at an older guy. 

He looks different, older, more handsome, even if her seventeen years old self could never think such a thing was even a possibility. The years treated him well, the older look suits him somehow. He has changed, yet she would recognize those dark, deep, knowing eyes anywhere. 

“Andy.” His lips form her name, and that feeling of attraction in the pit of her stomach grows deeper. 

They look into each other’s eyes, both of them completely at a loss of words. And what do you say to the person who used to be your entire world fifteen years ago, someone who has creeped back into your mind in your darkest hours. Someone the thought of makes your heart clench with sorrow, yet makes a smile appear on your face when you think about those memories you shared. 

There are so many questions running through her mind as she looks at the man he came to be without her. She chooses to start with “What are you doing here?” 

“Can we go somewhere else to talk? I think this is a conversation we need to have in some kind of privacy.” He suggests. 

Andy can’t help but notice that he doesn’t make a move toward her, keeping their bodies at a safe distance. 

As if they were complete strangers. 

As the years passed, the image of their reunion shifted in her mind. At first, after he just left, she imagined him knocking on her door one day, wearing his uniform and a tired look on his face. She imagined herself jumping his bones, kissing him deeply, making love to him all night long. 

As she grew older, and that specific dream never came to be, the idea of them meeting once again shifted in her mind. She imagined him giving her a warm embrace, and then sitting together, sipping on a glass of wine or two, and catching up on the events that happened in their lives since they parted ways. 

A few years ago, she stopped imagining completely. Yet she never stopped waiting for him to return to her. 

Her Robert. 

She could never imagine the way he reacted to her now. He is cold and distant, and she can’t read the sealed expression on his face. Andy follows her high school sweetheart to the turnout room, and he closes the door behind the two of them. 

“You look really well.” Robert starts with a compliment, which for some unknown reason makes her blush. 

“I am not at my peak right now.” Andy confesses. “I came down with something two days ago, and I haven’t been at the station since.” 

The air in the small room is filled with the loaded silence, heavy around them with fifteen years full of thoughts of what could have been. 

“I owe you an explanation.” 

“I just want to know…” They speak at the same time, interrupting each other. 

“You go first.” Andy coaxes. 

“Just, promise to hear me out.” He asks, and she nods. “I got discharged just over two years ago.” 

Andy’s vision turns vague for a moment when she hears those words. 

Two years.

He has been here for two years, and not once he even bothered to reach out to her.  
Thinking about it, it makes a twisted sense that he had been back in this city for a while now. He is a firefighter, and even though he doesn't have any bars on his collar, he had to get through the academy and training in order for her to see him in that fire two days ago.

She feels stupid, and small, and betrayed. She feels as if someone up there is pulling an unsuccessful joke on her account. 

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” She whispers. 

Two years. 

Her heart is broken, and yet she won’t let herself fall apart in front of this man, whose outsides look like someone that she used to love but his soul she doesn’t recognize. 

“Because I have changed, Andy. I am not the same boy who left you in that train station. The things I have seen, the things I have done, the people I have lost. These ghosts haunt me, Andy. Every minute of every day and night for the last fifteen years. And when you are there, you do what has to be done to live another day, to take another breath. But back here, the thoughts and the dreams are just…” He trails off, covering his face with his hands in frustration. 

“I can help you.” She tries to get closer to him, but he pulls away instantly, avoiding her touch. “And we can see if that fire we had fifteen years ago still exists.” 

“I moved on, Andy.” 

He does it again, drops another bomb, shakes her world vigorously like she is living in a snow globe that has an image of the space needle in it.

“I got married.”

Never, in a million years, could she have imagined him delivering such news to her on the day they met again. 

“So you have a wife?” Andy spits out.

“Had. Her name was Claire. We got married eight years ago. Two years later, the vehicle she was riding was caught in an enemy fire.” 

Andy turns her back to him, takes a deep breath, trying to calm the raging fire inside her, trying to avoid saying something she might regret later. 

You used to believe this man was the love of your life, she reminds herself. 

“What am I supposed to say to that? That I am sorry for your loss? Because, damn it, I did wait for you!” She screams, facing him again. She wants to throw objects, shatter glasses, bring down a wall. There is something else she has to ask him, the need to know taking the better half of her, even if she knows that there is an answer to this question she is not yet ready to hear. “Do you have any children?” 

He nods his head. “It never really came up, since we were both on active duty.” 

“Did you love her?” Andy crosses her arms around her chest, in an attempt to protect her broken heart from shattering any further. 

“I did.” He takes a deep breath. The silence around them is filled with sadness and the smell of broken dreams. “But it doesn’t mean I forgot about you. About the promise I had made to you. And every single night the stars were out there for me to see, I thought about them. Jupiter and Venus. And suddenly you weren’t that far away.” 

“You know what, I had enough. I can’t hear any of this anymore. Just, you stay on this side of town, and I stay on mine. ” Andy concludes. As she swings the door open and starts to make her way back to her car in angry steps, she feels his hand grabbing her wrist.

“I think you have said enough, didn’t you?” Andy yells. 

“I wanted to talk to you earlier, I did.” 

“Well, forgive me if I don’t believe you.” She shouts. There is a small group of people, his co-workers, gathering around them, trying to figure out what the fuss is all about. They really should have kept their conversation private. 

“Then ask your father.” He does it again, pulls another surprise out of his sleeve. “When I came back, I gathered the courage and came to see you. When I rang the doorbell, Pruitt was there. He said that I have done nothing but hurt you, and that I should keep a safe distance from you. He only affirmed what I knew myself. This new version of me, the haunted and messed up man, you don’t want him to be a part of your life, trust me.”

Andy turns around to him, and as she speaks she looks deep in his eyes. “ I am so sick of the men in my life always thinking they know what is best for me, better than I do.” 

Then she is gone, starting her car and driving away as fast as possible, leaving behind a shocked and confused Robert. 

“Sullivan, what did you put the poor woman through to have her storm out like that?” His captain asks. 

“I have put her through much more than she ever deserved.” He answers simply, and each word pains him like a twisted knife straight to his gut.


	4. Chapter 4 - Ghost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!  
> Thank you for reading and leaving comments!  
> Hope you enjoy this one and tell me what you think!

“My ghost  
Where'd you go?  
What happened to the soul you used to be?” 

Ghost by Halsey 

********************

January 2004 

“Remind me again why are we doing this?” Robert asks as he parks his car outside of Andy’s house. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself down, but can’t seem to be able to stop moving, as if he tries to shake that uncomfortable tension building inside of him off. 

“Because, we have been dating for three months now, and I would very much like for you to be able to stay at my house without feeling the need to flee every time my dad comes back home from a shift. And for that to happen, he has to know about your existence first.” Andy answers. She takes his hand in hers and squeezes it reassuringly, and though Robert turned the engine off, neither of them makes a move to exit the car. 

Robert takes her hand and presses it to his mouth, kissing it lightly. “I just… I don’t know what I will do if he doesn’t like me.” Robert tries to explain his concerns. 

“Well, I like you, so this should be more than enough for him.” She isn’t completely true to her feelings by saying that. She loves him, she knows that much already. But they are young and this thing they have between them is still new, even though the both of them are certain by now it is something special, out of the ordinary. Something that most people don’t get to experience when they are only in high school, a thing some people will not experience at all through their lifetime. Neither of them said those three little words yet, and she isn’t going to say them for the first time right before she is about to introduce him to her father.

Andy is the first one to step out of the vehicle, and Robert is quick to follow her steps to the door. “Wait, did you even tell him that I am your boyfriend, and not just another friend?”

Andy’s silence is answer enough, and Robert turns around and makes his way back to the car. “This was a terrible idea.” He determines.

Andy grabs him by the hand before he has a chance to put more than one step away between them. “Please.” She looks at him with those big brown eyes, gives him a look she knows he can’t say no to. “This is just a Sunday lunch with my dad. I promise you, he doesn’t bite. Well, most of the time, anyway.” 

“Well, I would like to not have to sneak out of your house every time he might be coming around.” Robert admits. “But maybe I should sit on the other side of the table, so he doesn’t think that....” 

“That what? That we have brushed elbows? I think that ship has sailed.” She smiles at him. 

It has been three months, and Robert has been nothing but patient, waiting for her to tell him when she is comfortable with taking things between them further. She is not there yet, she needs more time and preparation before she will be ready to have sex for the first time, so they have barely moved past heated making out sessions by this point. But still, he did touch her, in a way a father might not want to think about his sixteen year old daughter being touched. 

Andy stands on the tiptoes of her worn out Converse shoes and places a soft kiss to his lips. “Now come on. We will have to rip off the band-aid sooner or later.” She opens the door, and takes his hand in hers, almost having to drag him in. 

“You are a terrible kisser.” He sighs, and follows her in reluctantly. 

“Hey dad, we are here!” Andy calls. 

“Hey, I went to that burger place you really like, I don’t even know why, and I got us some lunch. Is the friend you invited over already here?” They can hear Pruitt ask, but they can’t see him until he appears in the living room. 

Her father gives the two of them a once over, his eyes rest a moment on the way their fingers are intertwined, the way the sides of their bodies are pressed together as they stand, as they wait for his verdict. Andy can feel Robert trying to pull away from her, but she only holds him closer, refusing to succumb to her father’s judgment. 

“You failed to mention that he is a friend who is a male. And that the two of you are close, so it seems.” Her father bites. She was afraid he was going to start spitting out words in fast Spanish, ignoring Robert’s present in the room completely. He doesn’t appear happy with what he sees, but at least it seems as if he will express his dissatisfaction in English. 

“Dad, this is Robert, my boyfriend. Robert, this is my father.” She tries to introduce the two, even though she knows she completely blindsides her father, surprising him with something he couldn’t have expected. 

Robert spends quite a substantial amount of his time in her house, but they have always made a good job not leaving any traces behind. If her father ever asked if someone was over, she would have just said it was Ryan, who had to cooperate with their little lie, even though he made sure the both of them knew he wasn’t doing so happily. 

“Nice to meet you, Mister Herrera.” Robert reaches his hand out, but her father doesn’t do the same, leaving Robert no choice but to take it back. 

“Un novio, uh?” Her father asks, squinting his eyes at them. 

From all the ways her father could have reacted, this one is not the worst, far from it, and she thinks that once his initial shock would settle, they are going to be in the clear. “Maybe we should start eating, and then you can ask us anything you want?” Andy looks at her dad with hopeful eyes. 

She just wants the three of them to go through this lunch, and for it not to be a complete disaster. Is that too much to ask? 

Pruitt nods, and they all make their way to the table quietly. Andy pulls the food items out of the simple brown paper bag, and distributes them between the three of them. They take the first few bites in complete silence, filled with tension, before Robert is the first to fill in the quiet, out of all people. “This is really good.” He hums in satisfaction. “Where did you get this from?” 

“The drive in on Broadway.” Andy states proudly, as if she cooked lunch herself. “They make my favorite burger in the city.” 

“Well, I guess that now they are my favorite, too.” 

They smile at each other, when Pruitt interrupts them. “So, Andy, have you met his parents yet?” 

Robert seems to choke on his food suddenly, and Andy can’t help but notice that the question was directed toward her. Her father decided to ignore Robert’s presence completely, she understands, as if by not addressing him, he will be able to erase his presence, and maybe his entire existence as well. 

Andy reaches her hand out and places it on Robert’s lower back, telling him soundlessly that she is there for him, that she will shift the subject of the conversation if he needs her to. 

“Sir, I have met your daughter on the first day of school this year. I was a new student, and a senior, which means that everyone in my class already spent the last three years together. None of them were on the lookout to make a new friend that day, and frankly, I didn’t think I would make any friends by the time the school year ended. Yet Andy... She was the only person at the entire school who saw me as… Me, and didn’t look at me as if I was an exhibit in a museum.” 

“Wait, how old are you?” Pruitt interrupts, finally acknowledging Robert’s existence. “And what does any of this have to do with what I asked?” 

“Dad, let him finish.” Andy urges. 

“I transferred schools, and moved across the country, because I couldn’t stand to live in the same city I was born and raised in. I couldn’t stand to live in the same New York City apartment, where my parents used to live.” He takes a deep breath, and Andy can see the tears standing in his eyes, but he doesn’t shed them. “I couldn’t stand being there, because two and a half years ago, on September 11th morning, they were on a flight headed from Newark to San Francisco, but ended up crashing down in Pennsylvania. It took me two years, but I moved to Seattle, to live with my aunt. So no, Andy never got to meet my parents, and she never will.” 

The silence in the kitchen is charged, and it feels as if there is need for only one spark to make the entire place go up in flames.

Robert wasn’t completely honest with them. He missed his parents every single day, every single moment. But there was another reason he couldn’t stand staying in that house, a place that from the moment his parents were killed, he couldn’t bring himself to call home anymore. 

He couldn’t stand being around the man who he is supposed to be related to, who was supposed to be his grandfather. A blood of his blood, flash of his flash. It took him almost two whole years, but he came up with a plan, and with the help of his mother’s family, he moved out of that house, moved out of that city, and never looked back. 

Because he couldn’t stand staying in that house, feeling like he lived with his parent’s ghosts, but also feeling like one himself, pretending that the man he hates so much doesn’t exist. 

He guesses that six years of complete silence takes their toll on you. 

“I am sorry for your loss, son.” Pruitt mumbles, and Andy gives him the best ‘Please don’t tell that story’ look she can master. She knows her father likes to ramble about that time every chance he has, but right now, he might have the worst timing possible. 

He father understands, and just settles on “I was there, in the aftermath, helping out as much as I could. I can’t imagine how it must have been for you, being in the city when it happened.” 

Andy can feel her boyfriend’s body tense up beneath her hand, before he picks himself from his seat, leaving his meal only half eaten. He places a quick peck to her cheek, then rests a hand on her shoulder as he speaks. “My parents were many things, but they weren’t perfect. They did, however, raised me to be the man I am today. And I promise you, sir, that if you will just give me the chance to take care of your daughter, I will never hurt her. Now, if I may be excused.” 

He walks out and leaves Pruitt shocked, and Andy worried. 

She only knows him for a total of six months or so, but one of the first things that she came to realize about him is that he is a very private person, and he needs his space in moments like this. She hasn’t been around him long enough for her to offer herself as any kind of solace, so she decides not to follow him, decides to let him have the rest of the day to himself. Instead, she makes a mental note to make sure he is alright first thing tomorrow morning when she arrives at school, and to ask him if he would like for her to be there for him, in a case when something like that rises again. 

“He has quite the attitude.” Pruitt states the obvious. 

Andy smiles to herself. That is one of the many reasons she has fallen for him. “Well, you can’t say that I am exactly easy myself.”

“No, you are not. And I can tell that he has been through a lot in his short life, and that he cares about you deeply.” 

“Well, I care about him, too.”

“Still, it doesn’t mean I like him. Or the fact that you now have a boyfriend.” Her dad huffs, and gets back to eating his lunch, so Andy knows that even though he is not satisfied, he won’t do anything to keep them apart. 

**********

Present Day 

Andy paces back and forth in front of her childhood house. 

She didn’t plan to go there. 

Frankly, her initial plan was to call Vic, and tell her to bring over as much Vodka as her two arms can carry, because Andy wants to drink. 

She wants to drink her way to oblivion, wants to drink so much until she can’t recall his name or her own, something she wasn’t old enough to do the first time he left her lost and ruined. 

Andy won’t admit it, but fifteen years later, he managed to break her heart again. 

He still has that effect on her. 

She has been living with Maya for quite some time now. She needed to get out of her father’s house, to start a life of her own, to start figuring out who she is. And she thanks her lucky stars for doing so before she came face to face with Robert Sullivan again. 

Because she is furious, and angry, and oh so heartbroken, but she is not sixteen years old anymore. She won’t cry her heart out and wait for Ryan or anyone else to come save her from herself. 

No, she needs to let the anger out, and right now, the list of people she is angry with is right about endless. 

The first person she is mad about is herself. She feels stupid, and little, and much like that seventeen years old girl left forgotten on a rainy day in September fifteen years ago. She is mad at him, mad about the fact that he is back in her city, even though he clearly didn’t have any intention of being back in her life, back in her arms. She is angry with God and with the universe, but she can do absolutely nothing about it. 

Yet there is one person she is crossed with, and she is able to confront, head on, eyes open. 

So she drove back from the other side of town, at a speed that if she had been stopped by an officer, would have resulted in a ticket, not really knowing where her final destination was, until she found herself parking in front of her childhood house. 

Andy slams on the door, making sure her father hears her waiting outside, loud and clear. She still has her own key, but she knocks anyway, ensuring he knows she didn’t come over for a cup of coffee and a friendly conversation regarding the weather. 

He finally opens up, and she storms into the living room, not greeting him with as much as a cold hello. 

“I…” Andy tries to talk, but the words won’t come out of her mouth. She sits on the sofa, and cradles her head in her hands, trying to make sense of the chaos in her mind. 

“Mija, what happened?” 

“He…” She breathes out, trying to form the words. “He is back. But you already knew that. For the last two years, you have known he is in the city, and still, you kept it from me. You kept him from me” 

“I did.” Pruitt doesn’t try to deny. “But you have to understand that everything I did, I did for you.”

“Well, you will have to enlighten me, because I really don’t see how keeping him away from me, letting me long for him for two long years, when he was just a drive away, was best for me.” She lashes out. 

Her father tries to sit down next to her, tries to touch her arm lightly, to offer her some kind of comfort, but she backs away. Andy gets up from her seat and starts to pace around the living room, her mind still foggy, as if she can’t fully comprehend how vast the lie her father told her was. 

“I did it because I knew how much you loved him, that eighteen years old boy of yours. I did it because I remember that spark you had in your eyes when he was around, and how that spark went out the day he left. I did it because I remember you skipping school, lying in your bed, not eating, losing weight after he was gone. I did it because I remember how long it took you to stand up on your own two feet after he disappeared. And I will be damned if I will let this happen to you again. Because he will break your heart again, Andrea. Sooner or later.” 

She hates to admit it, but her father is right. Robert Sullivan did break her heart once again, when he said that he moved on, while she waited for him to return to her. 

He broke her heart with the words he didn’t say. He didn’t say that he wanted her back, and Andy knows that despite everything, she would have let him back in if he just asked her to. 

“I am not the same broken, sad ,little seventeen years old girl, who you have to mend, dad!” She screams. “I made captain, and I have my friends. It isn’t just you and Ryan around me anymore, fighting to protect me from my own demons. I am a thirty two year old woman, so why didn’t you let me make that decision for myself?” 

“Because, you think you are the only one who changed over the course of fifteen years? You think he is the same young man you have been waiting for, with that desire to protect you and that ideal of avenging his parents death?” Her father rolls his eyes at her, and she can’t believe that he uses that same patronizing tone. 

She makes a few steps again and again, until she manages to calm herself into speaking, not yelling. “I know he didn’t wait for me. I know he has been married. But if you had just let him have a chance to explain all those things to me two years ago, we might have had a chance to patch together the things that were broken. Instead, you convinced him he wasn’t good enough for me, like you always thought him to be, and now it is too late.”

“This is not what I meant.” Her father calls, and now he is yelling too. 

“So what did you mean, dad? Because I am so tired of trying to understand your intentions.” No matter how hard Andy tries, it seems like they always get back to square one. Fighting. 

“You should have seen him when he came by that day, Andrea.” 

“Well, you didn’t really give me the chance, did you?” She mutters under her breath, a comment not unheard by Pruitt, yet still ignored. 

“He was… A ghost. A shadow of himself, a shadow of a man, actually. It took me a while to even recognize him, and not because he aged. He looked tired, and as if he was having an inside battle. As if the real world and the things he had seen have beaten him down to a point where he was unrecognizable. The light in his eyes went out and he… He just didn’t look or sound like a man I would want around my daughter.”

“Well, maybe I could have helped him, given the chance!” 

“You won’t understand it, Andrea. Not until you will have children of your own.” 

Andy grants and makes her way to the door, leaving more frustrated than she came, if this was even a possibility. 

She swings the door open, ready to storm out, not knowing where she is headed, yet sure it has to be a location as far away from her father as possible. And if that place happened to serve alcohol, the better. For someone who keeps saying how every choice he makes is for her own good, he doesn't seem to give her a lot of chances at love and happiness. 

“I was just about to knock.” 

“Ryan, what are you doing here?” Andy asks, surprised. There goes her plans to make quite an impressive exit. However, her father tends to be calmer in the company of other people, especially Ryan, so maybe his presence is for the better. 

“I heard the yelling. I wanted to come by and see if everything is alright.” Her childhood friend mumbles, placing a hand on the back of his neck.

“Did you know that he is back?” Andy spits. Maybe he was in on that little secret of her father, too. Maybe everyone was in on that secret, other than her, making a joke on her account. 

“Who is back?” Ryan asks, doesn’t follow. “Wait, he is back?” Ryan suddenly realizes, and his eyes tear wide open. Andy thinks he looks as shocked as she feels, but there is something else in there, that Andy doesn’t catch, isn’t even aware of. 

Disappointment. 

Because Ryan knows. A part of him always knew.

Her heart will always belong to him, her first love. 

But Robert was gone, and Ryan never stopped believing that Andy would move on, after enough years would have passed by since the last moment she laid eyes on her high school lover. Time never stopped, never slowed down, the days turned to months turned to years, and eventually, she has shared her bed with Ryan, on many occasions, but never her heart. 

That part of her will always belong to Robert Sullivan. 

Ryan kept thinking that if he only gave her enough time, she might return those feelings to him, but now that he is back, it is crystal clear it is never going to happen. 

“He didn’t know.” Her father reassures. “When Robert came here, he told me about his plans to become a firefighter. I pulled some strings to get him to a station at the other side of town, and made sure the two of you won’t cross paths. I guess that now that I am not on active duty, it was only a matter of time.” 

“What is going on?” Ryan asks, confused. Andy wraps her arms around his middle and pulls him into a hug. She is not a huger, not by a long shot, but she needs somebody to lean on, as she feels her world falling to pieces around her. Her action takes Ryan by surprise, but he hugs her back, trying to reassure her. 

“I really thought he was the one. The only one. I thought that he was exceptional, that we were exceptional, together.” She whispers into Ryan’s shirt, smelling the familiar scent of her best friend. She can’t keep it in anymore, and there is one big, fat, tear rolling from her eye, wetting her best friend’s shirt. 

“I know.” Ryan tries to reassure her. “I know.” 

Ryan had that idea, that fantasy, an illusion that now with Robert's return, he will just have to sober up from. A notion that one day Andy Herrera won’t love Robert Sullivan as much as she does. 

But it is obvious for anyone to see that she still loves him fifteen years later, with the same fire she loved him that day he saw her shattered to pieces in that train station, Ryan understands, and she will never love him any less.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK just to be clear, there will be no Ryan-Andy-Sullivan love triangle in this one, so you all can relax.


	5. Chapter 5 - Fade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!   
> I am going to answer a question that I got a lot about last chapter. Claire and Robert met when they were both serving in the military. Robert came to see Andy and instead had that conversation with Pruitt right after he got discharged, 2 years before the present day. I mentioned it in chapter 3 but I understand it might not have been completely clear. Feel free to ask any more questions you got!   
> I hope you enjoy this one and leave me your thoughts!

"And when I'm just about to pass the point of it all  
You come ripping all the air from out of my lungs  
And now it's so hard to breathe..." 

-Fade by Lewis Capaldi

*******

December 2006

The city of Seattle smells like Christmas on that day. It might be the fact that it snowed outside last night, and the city is still covered with a thin layer of white that managed to catch onto the sidewalks, but not really pile up. 

It might be the way there is someone in every little nook and cranny across the city selling hot cocoa, or gingerbread cookies, or warm nuts coated with sugary glaze, that make the entire city smell like candy and sweets. 

It might be the way there are pine trees everywhere, heavily decorated and lit, and a mistletoe hanging over almost every house, making the people who pass by kiss their significant other, and roll in a fit of laughter. 

Robert Sullivan hasn’t been a very big Christmas enthusiastic in the last couple of years. Ever since his parents died in that awful tragedy, the heavily family oriented holiday reminded him nothing but the family he has lost, the people who he will never buy presents for, or sing carols with. In the one year he spent the holiday with Andy Herrera, who relieved the pain a little, but not completely, she even made sure to tell him he reminded her of the Grinch himself. 

Yet this Christmas… This Christmas is different.

After two long years, he finally got his very own Christmas miracle. He finally got to go back to the last place that felt somewhat like home to him. 

So he rushes through the busy streets, crowded with tourists and shoppers, still wearing his uniform. He nods at the direction of every person who thanks him for his service, acknowledging their gratitude, but never stopping to say even a word. 

He has to see her.

Robert throws his belongings in his aunt’s house, hugs her in his strong arms and makes a promise to come back later before he rushes back out the door, not bothering with his look or his attire, even though he made a long journey of thousands upon thousands of miles to get back to the city. He promised his aunt that he will come back and tell her all about the last two years of his life, yet he knows fully well that if things go as planned, he may spend the night with someone else. 

As long as he is lucky enough and she will agree to take him back. 

As he makes his way to her house, he repeats over and over again the speech he perfected during his long travel back home. By now, he has read through the little paper so many times, he knows every word by heart. He is going to apologize for not writing back to her lately. He is going to explain that the last year has been busy, and that he had been moved from place to place so fast he had a hard time keeping track, a hard time finding a moment for himself to write to her. He is going to explain that he is a different man now, not the same eighteen years old high school student she knew. He is going to explain the things he had seen and done, the friendships he had gained and lost, but not go into much detail. 

He doesn’t want to leave her broken and scarred like the last two years have left him. 

Lastly, he will have to explain to her that his job is not done yet. That yes, he had come back to her, but only for the short span of the holiday season, and that come the new year, he will have to go back to his duty, to the job that forms his life now. 

And then, all that will be left is for her to open her arms and take him back, to agree to spend only a couple of weeks together, and then wait for him to return to her once again, like he promised he will that day in the train station. A day that took place two years ago, but for him it seems like there has been an entire lifetime that passed ever since. 

Before he knows it, he stands in the front of her house. 

He can see his reflection in the window by the door. A tall, scruffy looking soldier. Rough, dirty. A complete stranger to her, and sometimes to himself as well. When he looks into a mirror, he doesn’t recognize himself more often than not, but he still hopes she will be able to see him for who he still is, under the surface of grimace and weariness. 

He prays that she will be able to see the same boy, the same man she loves. 

His hand reaches out to knock on the door softly, yet there is something that holds him back from letting her know he is standing at the entrance to her house. That he is finally, finally, so close to her that she can just reach a hand and touch him. 

The blinds are pulled wide open, letting whatever amount of sunlight in, allowing it to filter through the windows. He can hear loud Christmas music coming in from inside the house, and noises of yelling and laughter. 

When he gets a little closer to the window, he can see her standing over the dinner table, singing along to the music in that off beat style of hers. 

His Andy. 

Ryan is there too, and Robert couldn’t have expected it to be any other way. Since the moment he met Andy, he knew Ryan and her were inseparable. They were always together, almost like twins joined by the hip. When Andy and Robert started dating, they had a conversation about setting clear boundaries for her best friend, guidelines that will allow them to spend some time alone together, and yet, Ryan was there more often than not. 

As Robert peeks in, feeling a little like a thief in the night, as if he is doing something completely illegal, he can see that the both of them are wearing ugly Christmas sweaters, and that they have big smiles stretching from ear to ear, probably stuffing their faces with cookies and decorating some Christmas cards or wrapping presents. 

She is genuinely happy, he realizes. She has found true joy without him in her life. 

And then he understands that he can’t do that to her. 

He can’t be a burden on her shoulders. He can’t force her to handle the new man he has become, with his troubles and his hardships. He can’t tell her the horror stories that have been his life for the last two years, and he can’t expect her to understand. 

Because he knows she never will, no matter how hard he will try to explain it to her. 

And he doesn’t want to do that to her, not when he watches her, observing the way she seems so happy right now, in the company of her best friend, completely oblivious to his presence, so close, yet so far away. 

He can’t let her be flooded by all of her feelings for him, all of the feelings they have for each other, only to be taken away from her in a couple weeks time. He won’t be able to handle being heartbroken again, and he believes that she won’t be able to go through the same thing again, either. 

No, he can’t do it to her, and he won’t. He refuses to hurt her again. 

And regarding himself... Well, he is already broken and damaged, the last two years in his life made sure of that. They made sure he will never be able to go back to the man he used to be, the young man who used to hold her in his arms and invent silly facts about the stars, as if they had all the time in the world in their hands. 

He understands that he should probably leave, considering the fact that he now has no intention of letting her know that he came back for her. Yet, no matter how hard he tries, he can’t tear his gaze away. He decides to linger a bit by the closed door, the only thing that separates him from running inside and holding her closely, from promising her things he knows he will never be able to keep. 

There is no other way for him to describe the look of her but completely blissful. Adding to the smile on her face, she is glowing. Her hair is longer now, falling in soft waves on her shoulders, as the two childhood friends are so invested in whatever it is that they might be doing, that they never pick up their heads from the little improvised crafts corner they made themselves. 

There is a part of Robert that wants to scream, wants to make a noise, to do something, anything, that will make her notice him standing outside her front door. He wants her to be the one to come over to him, to hold him in her arms, to promise him that everything will be alright, that right now, they can live in their little piece of heaven, only them and the stars in it, until they will have to deal with the harsh reality. The reality that seems to be doing everything in its power to keep them apart. 

Because he doesn’t have the courage to do the same thing for her. 

He watches them silently for a while, creeping outside, trying to memorize the way she looks like that. Content and carefree. He tries to imagine the way her shampoo smelled the last time he had a chance to place his nose on the top of her head, like vanilla and lavender. He tries to remember how her soft hair felt between his fingertips, and the way her skin felt against his.

He tries to come up with all those things, all those little details that made Andy Herrera his, but he realizes he can't. He understands that after two long years of sleeping in the dust and fighting an enemy that seems like he will never win, his memories of her started to fade away around the edges, just like the memory of his parents started doing not too long ago. 

The understanding that this is probably the last time he is going to see her face hits hard on Robert, and he does everything he possibly can to hold in the single tear that threatens to leak out of his eye and pour down his cheek. 

He didn’t cry the few times he heard another one of his own was gone. He had to man up, to be a soldier, and losing friends and peers on the battlefield is part of the job at hand. Is part of the stake he took, much like losing his own life. 

Yet something about that thought of never feeling her head resting against his chest, or feeling her soft lips presses oh so lightly to his, makes it almost impossible to keep that single tear at bay. 

So he turns around and walks away, leaving behind that girl, his girl, until the house where they shared so many memories fades in the distance. 

He will just have to apologize to Ripley, and tell him he couldn’t do it.

******

“I can’t believe your father insists on sending you to college when he knows you want to be a firefighter!” Ryan huffs as he struggles to fold the edges of the wrapping paper just right, yelling above the music in order to be heard by his best friend. 

“Give it to me.” Andy grunts and takes the present Ryan has been working on, finishing the job for him, because he clearly isn’t capable of doing so. “I know. I think he wants me to have a solid base, just in case I won’t make it through the academy. But I will. I will do everything it takes to be a firefighter. It just sucks that he makes me spend at least two years of my life studying something I will have absolutely no use of in my future. I just wish he would let me join the fire department straight out of high school.” 

Andy passes her best friend the perfectly wrapped gift, when the song on the radio changes from ‘Silent Night’ and ‘Last Christmas’ comes on instead. 

She starts to dance around and sing off key and off rhythm, her thought inevitably wondering to the man she gave her heart to not last Christmas, but the one before that. 

“Kill the music.” Andy orders her best friend when she takes a glimpse of something, or rather someone, standing by the entrance. There is a hunch in the pit of her stomach, something that she can’t really explain, that tells her that it is him. She can almost feel him hovering outside, fighting an inner battle. 

She runs to the door, feeling her heart pulsing in her throat instead of her chest. She stands in front of it, pulling her sweater down, straightening her hair between her fingers, before she swings the door wide open. 

Yet there is no one there. 

“Andy, are you alright?” Ryan asks from inside of the house, completely oblivious to the way she feels, as if someone is pressing a giant rock down her body. 

She really thought he would be there, waiting patiently for her on the other side of the door. Her very own Christmas miracle. 

“Yeah, I am fine.” She yells back, doing everything in her power to prevent her voice from breaking. “I just thought I saw someone at the entrance.” 

Andy takes a deep breath, and closes the door behind her. 

***********

Present Day

Andy walks into the station, her back held up high, and Maya shuffles behind her, dragging her feet across the floor.

“This is going to be a terrible day.” The blonde decides, even though their day hasn't even started yet. “I can’t believe you woke me up at five in the morning to go on a run. Who are you and what did you do to Andy Herrera?” 

“It is going to be a great day.” Andy calls. 

“Was Ryan over last night? Or will he be spending some time in the apartment time after the shift is over? Is he the reason you are all sunshine and butterflies today?” Maya asks, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. 

“No.” Andy shakes her head as she stands by the door to the Captain’s office. “He won’t be coming over anymore. I decided to keep him as a friend. Just a friend. No more booty calls, no more benefits.” 

“Does that have something to do with one tall mysterious guy we saw on the five alarm fire last week? The one you called ‘The one that got away’ and didn’t care to elaborate on, and that after seeing him you threw up like a teenage girl who hasn’t figured out how to hold down her liquor yet, and had to take two sick days?” Maya inquires, and sometimes Andy hopes her best friend wasn’t as perceptive as she is. 

“It has nothing to do with him. Nothing has anything to do with him. Now go change, and meet me upstairs in the beanery so we will be able to start on breakfast.” The brunette orders. 

“Yes, captain.” Maya agrees reluctantly, before she disappears out of Andy’s eyesight, making her way toward the shared locker room. Andy is sure Maya would have liked to keep interrogating her about the mysterious man that threw Andy completely off her game in the middle of an important incident, but Andy doesn’t feel like answering any questions about Robert Sullivan. 

Not now, not ever. 

She pushes the door to the captain's office with her back, and enters her small bunk. She takes off her jeans and tank top, until she is left standing in front of the small mirror wearing nothing but her underwear. She lifts her leg up to put on her pants, and suddenly the Venus tattoo on the back of her leg is bold and present to her eye, mocking her. Telling a story of a million ‘what ifs’, of a future she now knows will never exist. 

And yet when the thought of removing the permanent mark from her skin crosses her mind, she is quick to banish it away and put on the rest of her clothing, her fingers closing the buttons and the zip quickly. 

Out of sight, out of mind. 

She pulls her hair up into a low ponytail, and whenever her thought tries to trail off to the inevitable subject that is Robert Sullivan, she fights her own mind, trying to push away every memory she has of him to an imaginary drawer she can just close and never open again. 

As if by trying to pretend the last seventeen years of her life never happened the words he and her own father had said to her not even a week ago would pain any less. 

She makes her way up the stairs and into the beanery, smelling the scent of freshly brewed coffee and a cooking breakfast that already spread across the room. 

“Good morning, Miller.” Andy greets, even though he is not the firefighter she expected to see already standing by the stove. 

“Cheery.” Dean observes. “Who are you and what did you do with Andy Herrera?” He asks, giving her a suspicious look. 

“You are the second person to ask me that today. This is me. The same Andy I have always been.” 

Andy opens one of the cupboards to pull out a mug, and as she fills it to the brim with the freshly made coffee, Miller continues to cook their breakfast, and keep up the conversation. “So I guess that you feel better? You know, after you have been out sick for a couple of days last week.” 

“So, so much better Miller.” Andy confirms, before taking the first sip of her coffee. The rich aroma feels her senses, and she hums in appreciation. “You know, I decided to put the past behind me. Keep my eyes on the future.” 

“Well, good for you.” Dean states, and then mutters under his breath. “I wonder how much time you will be able to keep up with that.” 

“I heard that, Dean.” Andy bites. She moves around the kitchen, trying to help in whatever it is she can get done before the rest of the team decides to finally show up. 

“Good morning, Warren.” Andy greets again, as she sees him walking their direction. 

“Who are you and what did you do with Andy Herrera?” He asks, even though she can clearly see Dean signaling the other man to just let it go. 

“Why do people keep asking me that question?” Andy inquires. 

“Anyway” Ben continues, eager to change the topic of the conversation. “There is someone waiting down for you, captain.” 

“Is it Joe? Because he knows he can only come in once the trucks pull out.” Andy mumbles, making her way down toward her office. She feels bad reprimanding the old man, but he should know better than that already. She goes in her mind through the things she is going to say to him, how she is going to turn him away gently and tell him to come back in once they are on a call, so it takes her a while to notice the man who leans against the front desk is not the man who is looking for shelter. 

No, he is the tall, handsome man in a uniform, who Andy spent the entire last week trying to push away from her mind and her soul. 

Her heart skips a beat when she lies her eyes on him, even though she already had a chance to get a close look at him in his uniform, fifteen years older, yet not one bit less attractive than she remembered him to be. 

And she hates how her body reacts to him, how she is so drawn to this man, even if it is the last thing she wants to be. 

“I thought I was very clear when we last spoke.” She barks. She will have to adjust herself to his presence in the same city she lives in, in the same fire department she works in, but she will not allow him to just show up in her station, after she had told him specifically to stay on his side of town and stay out of her life the last time they spoke. 

“Andy, please let me explain.” He begs. She is about to enter her office and slam the door in his face, but his reflexes are quick, and he places a hand on the door, forcing her to listen to what he has to say. 

“Oh no. I think you have done enough of explaining to last me a lifetime.” Andy hisses. “Right now, I am the one who is going to explain some things to you, because apparently I wasn’t clear enough last time we spoke. First of all, you don’t get to call me Andy. We both work for the fire department, and I clearly outrank you, so from now on, if we will ever cross paths again, it will be Captain Herrera. Got it?” 

“Yes, Captain.” He nods. 

“And second, there have been too many years in my life in which you, or my dad, got to make decisions for me, and it ends now. Get out! I don’t want to see you ever again!” She hisses. She would have yelled, would have screamed, would have let him know exactly how angry and hurt she feels. But they are in her station now, in her home, and she can’t have anyone else pushing their noses into whatever it is that exists between Robert Sullivan and herself. 

“There is something I need to say, Andy.” Robert tries again. 

“Calling me by my first name? Again?” She sighs. When her eyes catch the sights of someone else, she pushes Robert away, and walks towards her boss. 

“Chief Ripley.” Andy acknowledges him with a nod and a fake smile she is having a hard time keeping on her face, as she can still feel him hovering behind her. Didn’t she order him to leave?

“Captain Herrera, I see you already had a chance to meet the newest member of your team.” 

Andy blinks at the man a few times, trying to understand the meaning of the words just leaving his mouth, as if he is speaking in a language she never got the chance to learn. Her world is spinning, and she feels like she needs to sit down, or else she is going to fall over. 

“I am sorry, sir? The newest member of my team?” She repeats his words, dumbstruck. There has got to be some kind of mistake. Maybe Ripley is just confused? 

“Yeah, it seems like you and Sullivan had a chance to meet. It seems like the two of you were just leaving your office. Am I wrong?” 

“Oh, yeah, we did meet.” Andy nods, and thanks the lord Robert has at least a little bit of decency left in him to keep quiet as she tries to process the news. “I just didn’t know he was joining the station, and the A team, that’s all.” 

“Now when you were promoted to captain, and Bishop to lieutenant, there was an open spot for a new firefighter in your team. Sullivan put in the request for a transfer, and I couldn’t think of anyone who will be a better fit into this family than him.” 

“Sir, I am sorry, but you don’t act as the chief of station 88.” Andy asks, confused. 

This can’t be happening to her. It is nothing but a bad dream she is going to wake up from in a few moments. 

“You are right, but Sullivan and I go way back, I am sure he will tell you the story when he has the chance. So when he asked me to help him transfer to this station, I couldn’t say no.” Ripley seems completely oblivious to the obvious tension building up between the two, and Andy just can’t believe it. “Why, is there a personal problem that I need to know of, something that will interfere with Sullivan being a firefighter in this station?” 

“No, nothing at all.” Andy hisses through gritted teeth. 

“Good. Now, I think we should call the entire team for a moment, and introduce Sullivan to everyone.” Ripley states, putting his hands together. 

In a blink of an eye, Ripley is gone, calling the entire team to line up outside, leaving the two alone once again. 

“Andy…” Robert whispers, placing the softest hand on her shoulder. 

She closes her eyes for a fragment of a moment, a part of her, the physical one, that hasn’t been touched by him for fifteen years, wants to savor the moment. But the other part of her, the rational one, the one that has been heartbroken by him over and over again over the course of a mere week, takes back control in no time. “Don’t you dare.” Andy spits. “Go and join everyone else lining up outside. I will be there in a moment.” 

He knows better by now than defying her words, and as she sees him stepping outside, she enters her office and slams the door shut with such a force she is afraid it will fall off its hinges. She would have yelled, would have screamed until her voice was hoarse,but she is afraid someone might accidentally listen, and she doesn’t want to bring more attention to herself than what is absolutely necessary. 

Ever since he reappeared in her life last week, almost as if out of thin air, she has been telling anyone who has been willing to hear she is not the same shattered and broken sixteen years old girl anymore, and it is high time she will prove it. 

She holds her head up high and walks outside to take a place on the other side of Ripley, the one not occupied by the man who just a week ago, she still thought of as the love of her life. She is afraid that if she is the one doing the introduction, she will collapse, so she looks at Ripley pointedly, as if she is giving him the honor. “Station 19, I would like to introduce you to your new team member, Robert Sullivan.” 

As Andy hears those words, she just wants to fade. A part of her wants to fade back to be the sixteen year old girl whose love for him was young and pure. The other part wants to fade back to the woman who she was just over a week ago, completely oblivious to his existence, so close, yet so far away. 

Andy can’t help but watch Maya, as the blonde gives her a charged, questioning look. 

And then Andy realizes her roommate was right. This is going to be a terrible day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More about how Ripley and Sullivan know each other in the next chapter, don't worry


	6. Chapter 6 - Your Song

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!  
> Thank you so much for reading and commenting!  
> I don't have too much to say, just I hope you enjoy and leave me your thoughts!

"I hope you don't mind  
I hope you don't mind  
That I put down in words  
How wonderful life is while you're in the world"

Your Song by Elton John 

************

March 2004 

“Robert? Robert where are you taking me?” Andy tries to figure out, but her boyfriend seems reluctant to provide that specific information. He is holding her hand and walking her through the long corridors, now fully knowing his way around their high school, and she drugs her feet as she follows him, trying to keep up with his long strides. 

The hallways are quiet, no noise but the sound of the rain falling on the roof, a reminder of the fact that she has to be in biology right now, and he in math. But neither of them felt like sitting through another endless, boring class, so when he suggested they spend their time together instead, she immediately agreed. 

Her father will kill her if he finds out. 

They keep walking together, their fingers interlaced, until he suddenly stops in front of the music room. 

“What are we doing here, Robert?” Her eyes scan the empty room, going over the musical instruments standing abandoned all the way across the hall. This room is usually crowded with musicians and singers during the afternoon, earning their extra curricular credits, but during the mornings it is a fairly secluded spot. Sometimes a drummer or a guitarist will wander in to rehearse, but Andy knows more often than not the room stands empty, waiting for someone to make beautiful notes and music carry through the air again. “Because if you tell me right now you joined the glee club, I will sadly have to break up with you.” 

Robert snorts, then brings her hand to his lips for a quick kiss. “Personally, I think the glee club members are kind of awesome.” 

“That’s it. I am sorry, Robert, but it is never going to work out between us. Not if your biggest, most secret dream is to sing ‘Sit Down You're Rocking The Boat’ and weaving your jazz hands all over the place while you do so.” 

They both roll in fit of laughter, so Andy can’t see it, but her boyfriend’s face twitches just slightly as she mentions his supposedly secret dream. She made a joke on his account, but it doesn’t make the pull in his stomach any less painful when he thinks about the one secret dream he does have. The one he keeps from her. The one he knows will just hurt her deeper with every day that passes, yet he can’t find it in him to tell her the truth. She will inevitably find out, he knows that much. Secrets have their tendency to come to light, sooner rather than later. 

Yet he can’t bring himself to tell her, not when he looks at her giggling carelessly, so amused by her own joke, and her beautiful eyes sparkle with simple joy. There is nothing to tell her now, anyway. No, he will keep it to himself until he receives the final answer, and if he gets the call he is waiting for, telling him he will be enlisting once his last year of high school will come to an end, then he will find the right time and place to share the news with her. There is no reason to put that kind of weight on her shoulder for something that might not even happen, so he settles for a teasing “Oh, you are so on to me. I should have known better than keeping something like that from you.” 

“Seriously, Robert, what are we doing here?” Andy inquires when her laugh finally subsides, and she doesn’t have to hold her aching tummy anymore. 

“There is something I wanted to show you.” Robert says vaguely. 

“In the music hall?” Andy raises her brow.

“I just love how you miss the point of everything I do.” He states, then lowers his head to place a soft kiss on her lips. 

And there is that word again. Love. The one she feels deeply, but hasn’t gathered the courage to say to him yet. The one that makes her heart skip a beat in her chest. “I don’t really know what point our presence here has, so of course I am missing the point.” Andy shrugs. 

“Then let me show you.” Robert makes his way to the beautiful grand piano standing in the middle of the room, a magnificent shiny black instrument that seems way too expensive to belong to a public high school choir. He sits on half of the leather stool, and then pats on the empty space right beside him, inviting Andy to sit next to him. She is hesitant at first, but then makes her way toward the open space he cleared for her, sitting with her left leg pressed tightly to his right. 

Her fingers travel the white keyboards in awe, even though she has never learned to play an instrument before, and has no idea what sound any of them make. “Robert, the door is open, and we are not supposed to be here. If anyone catches us, we are going to be in so much trouble.” Andy breaths. 

“Don’t worry.” He tries to sooth her, which only makes the nervousness in the pit of her stomach grow deeper, makes her twist her neck to watch the entrance, to see if anyone is coming to scold them. He places a hand on her jeans clad thigh, and she relaxes a bit into his touch. 

When he is sure she has calmed, he lifts his hand from her, lets his palms hover over the keyboard. He bites down his lower lip in concentration, as if he is waiting for the piano to make a sound, even though he doesn’t press any of the keys. 

Robert takes a deep breath, and starts playing. The melody sounds familiar, and even though Andy can’t actually recall the name of the song, she knows she heard it many times before. 

“You know how to play the piano.” It comes out more of a statement than a question.

“I actually don’t.” Her boyfriend shys away and stops playing. “I used to take lessons when I was a kid. It was important to my dad and my grandfather. You know, European heritage and all of that, but I never really liked the way you had to sit and practice for hours on end every single day to actually be somewhat good at it. I was a kid who couldn’t sit still for five minutes straight without being distracted by something. So I quit before long, and this is the only song that I can still remember how to play, even though not very well, as you can tell. I just thought this song is fitting. That’s all.” 

“I am not a musician, but I think it was absolutely gorgeous. Keep going.” She encourages. Maybe it is the fact that she is so in love with him that made it sound better than it actually is, but Andy doesn’t think the little intro he played for her was half bad. 

His hands press lightly on the instrument and the music resumes, filling the otherwise quiet space. Andy doesn’t know how, but she suddenly recalls the first few lines of the famous song, and she whispers lightly “It’s a little bit funny, this feeling inside.”

“I am not one of those who can easily hide.” He continues, the both of them speaking the lyrics more than singing it. She follows with the next line to his encouraging nod, and even though he misses a note or two every now and then, and their rhythm is slower than it should be, since it takes them time to recall some of the words, they finally make their way to the last line of the chorus. 

“How wonderful life is while you're in the world.” 

The way he looks at her as he whispers that line pierces a hole through her stomach and makes her feel raw and oh so loved by this young man. 

The silence envelopes them after he plays the last note, until she finally breaks it with “This was absolutely beautiful. Can I ask you why this is the only song you still know how to play? And you remembered the notes by heart, no less.” 

Robert sighs. She can see that the specific question is troubling him, so she places her hand on his shoulder blade and runs it up and down in an attempt to put him at ease. “This used to be my mom’s absolute favorite song. I can remember being young enough to sit in her lap, and she would play this song over and over again, and I swear her eyes were glittering whenever this song came on, even though I am certain she had heard it at least a million different times in her lifetime. It was the first song I learned how to play, and I kept playing this one long after I quit my lessons. I kept playing it even after she died in that piano we had in our living room. I guess this song is my way of keeping her memory alive, even though she is not here to hear me play it for her anymore. I still think of it as her song.”

Robert bites down his lower lip and shakes his head. “God, she loved this song almost as much as I love you.” 

He doesn’t look at her, and Andy doesn’t think he even understands what he just said so casually, as if they have been saying those three words to each other every morning and every night. 

As if it weren’t the first time either of them said those three words that hold so much weight and so much meaning. 

He feels the same. 

And a part of her knew that for a long while now, knew the way she feels towards him isn’t a one way street, but hearing him say those three little words makes her belly turn upside down, makes a huge, smitten smirk appear on her face. 

“Well, I love you too, Robert Sullivan.” Andy shrugs, dismissing the words, as if they mean nothing at all. 

“Come here.” He coaxes, and then pulls her arm so she would lean in and kiss him softly. It is nothing more than a quick peck on the lips before he pulls away and mumbles. “You are a terrible kisser. I might give you some private lessons. Free of charge.” He smiles into the kiss. 

“Yeah?” She tilts her head and looks at him with a mischievous grin on her face. Andy wraps her arms around his neck and leans in to find his lips again. The respectable peck turns into a heated make out session in no time, and he whispers “I love you” every time they disconnect from each other to gasp for air, so they will be able to continue kissing a moment later. Robert lifts her up and places her in a half sitting position on the keyboard. The offensive sound it makes throws the two young lovers into another fit of laughter, that ends when he kisses her again, sliding his hands beneath her sweater. 

And then they hear someone clearing their voice behind them. 

They turn their heads quickly in the direction of the sound, and see a middle aged man glaring at them pointedly, his face a bright shade of red, his arms crossed against his chest. Neither of them recognizes the man, but they can both safely agree he must be one of the music teachers. “I told you one hundred times before that the music hall is not the place to go to when you are skipping class in favor of fooling around! Out, now! And you should be glad I am not sending the two of you to detention!” He yells. 

Andy and Robert both grab their backpacks and disappear out of the room as fast as possible, mumbling the word “Sorry” without making any eye contact. As they run down the hall, away from the angry stranger, the sound of their laughs carry through the walls. 

***************

Present Day 

“Andy? Andy can you hear me?” Maya waves a hand in front of her face, trying to get her attention. 

Andy feels numb, like she is in a hallucination she can’t seem to shake. The world is spinning around her and she can’t find a spot to hold on to and pull herself out of the feeling that the ground is dropping beneath her feet. 

He glares at her. She can feel his stare on her back, itching, burning. She can’t explain why, but she knows that if she only turns around, she will be able to see that caring look in his eyes, the one he used to give her right before he took her in his embrace when they were younger. Right before he told her that he loved her. 

Sullivan doesn’t make a move in her direction, knowing too well that he is the one who put her in a position where she is tumbling down, where she needs someone to lean on. He knows fully well that the person she will reach out to for support isn’t him, hasn’t been him for the last fifteen years of her life. 

“Maya.” Andy manages to whisper. She grabs her friend by the arm, trying to regain balance and some amount of her self control. “I need you to do a few things for me.” 

“Sure.” Maya agrees. 

“Please don’t ask me about him, and more importantly, please don’t let anyone know that I recognize him.” Andy begs. 

Maya nods, her eyes filled with sympathy and worry. “I will just have to ask you this, for my own peace of mind . Did he ever abuse you? Did he lay a hand on you? Is this the reason you looked almost scared when you saw him that day? Because I will be happy to go and file a police report with you if this is what you want to do. Or I can just kick his ass. I might look tiny, but I am strong.” 

Andy shakes her head and swallows, tries to come up with an answer that won’t make her friend keep inquiring, in a way that won’t make all of her wounds that didn’t heal quite properly bleed again. “He never did anything to make me get a restraining order against him, if this is what you are asking.” Andy tries to smile her way, but her lips bend down around the edges, making it seem more like a pout, as if she is about to start crying any moment now. 

What else could she have answered to that question? That he never hurt her physically, and that she is certain he never will? That he treated every part of her body with such delicacy, as if it was made from a substance more expensive than diamonds and gold? That even though he never left a single mark on her body, he left her heart and soul beaten down and bleeding? 

That after so many years, a part of her believed he had died on duty? 

She wasn’t his family, wasn’t his wife, wasn’t anything other than a lover he had left behind and never came back for, breaking his own promise, his own oath to her, so why would anyone contact her and let her know? She refused to dwell on the thought that he might have fallen, died a hero saving his own brothers and sisters. But as the years have gone by, that thought became more rational, the only explanation she could have given to herself as to why it has been so long and he didn’t reach out, even as more and more means to do so have evolved during the years. 

And deep down, in a scary, dark, pitiful part of her, one she refuses to acknowledge, but is definitely present, she wishes he has? Because the truth hurts more sometimes. He is still alive, and yet he chose someone else, another life, over what they had together. Over what he could have had with her. 

And the thought that hurt her the most, is that she doesn’t know why he made all of those choices. Why he chose to take a road that didn’t end up leading him back to her. And the same dark place in the pit of her stomach whispers her an explanation, like a devil sitting on her shoulder. 

She just wasn’t worth it. 

“What else do you need?” Maya asks, bringing her back to reality. 

“Tell everyone they can go and eat breakfast, and then they can start on the usual chores. If Ripley is still around, can you please tell him that I am in my office, catching up on some paperwork that stacked up while I was out sick?” Andy takes a deep breath before she says the last thing on her list of requests. She would like to avoid that, for as long as possible, forever, if it was an option, but she told her battalion chief that Sullivan being a part of her station is a non issue, so she would have to act accordingly. “Please tell him to come see me once he is done with breakfast.” 

“Are you sure it is a good idea?” Maya wonders. 

Andy nods, and places her hands on her knees, trying to find a position that will ease the migraine that starts to form in the front and center part of her head. She can see Maya and the rest of the team making their way back to the inside of the station. They take interest in the new addition, ask him questions, inquiring about his life prior to him joining station 19. She can even see Miller patting his back fondly. 

“Andy, are you coming back in?” Travis asks, and a bit of concern creeps into his voice as he does. 

“No, I am not hungry. I told Bishop what I expect you to do, as long as it remains quiet and we won’t be needed on a call.” 

Montgomery nods, and runs back into the station. 

She must look how she feels, then. 

It takes her a while to make her way back to her office, her legs feel heavy, as if they were made of lead and not a part of her own body. She almost has to drag herself in, one step at a time, until she finally makes it to her destination, slamming the door shut and rolling the blinds down, to prevent any curious eyes from peeking in. She is sure everyone figured out by now that she is not her usual self, but she doesn’t want them to connect the dots and figure out it is that man who keeps shaking her world upside down, over and over again, with his secrets and his lies. 

And she hates him for that. She hates him for crawling back under her skin, for making her feel like she loses grip over her own life. She hates him for the way he keeps barging in, uninvited and unwanted, to the life she built herself without him. 

She hates herself for letting his mere presence influence her as much as it does. 

The waiting feels endless. 

She doesn’t cry, refuses to shed another tear over this man. She has done her fair share of crying for him, over him, and it is high time for her to keep her eyes dry. She can’t sit still either. She tries to concentrate on the papers she has to approve and the schedules she has to build. Her father never really had the patience and tolerance to manage all of those things, which he used to refer to as collateral damage, so she ended up doing the station’s paperwork for him more often than not, even back when she wasn’t a lieutenant yet. 

This kind of desk work has become a second nature to her by now, but for some reason today, the words and the numbers seem all blurry, and they mix with each other into a pile of nonsense she cannot find a meaning to. She drops her work and gets up from her desk, pacing from one side of the room to the other, waiting for his knock on the door.

When it finally comes, she understands his presence does nothing to alleviate that feeling of heaviness she has been carrying around since the moment he showed up at her station that morning. If anything, that sense digs its way down deeper, straight into her core. 

He opens the door cautiously, not sure how she would react, even though she called for him. “Captain Herrera, you wanted to see me?” He asks, the door only open to a crack. 

“Yes.” She nods, and she manages to keep her voice somewhat leveled, manages to keep her raging feelings somewhat at bay, other than that little tremor at the end of every word. “Come in and close the door behind you.” 

He hesitates for a moment, until the understanding that she is his superior now, and he cannot defy her words, hits him. She sits in her own chair, and he takes the place in front of her. 

They sit silent for a minute, almost as if they were both wax figurines in a museum and not living and breathing human beings. It feels as if the air between them is charged, as if one of them is going to reach a hand out, they are going to get electrocuted. 

“I am listening.” Andy starts, and he just gives her a confused look, not really following her lead. “You wanted me to hear you out earlier, and I am sure you wanted to explain to me why the hell you, out of all people in the world, is the new firefighter in the station I run. My station. So I am giving you the chance to reason yourself.” 

“I… I don’t know.” He hesitates. He looks troubled. He can’t decide where to look, but makes a point not to look directly into her eyes. He seems at loss of words, and oh so very tired. 

And there it is, that part of her, the part that will always belong to him, calling her to ease his pain, to comfort him. 

That moment is gone, and in a blink of an eye they both compose themselves, acting cold and indifferent, as if they didn’t promise each other the moon and the stars fifteen years ago. 

“Not good enough.” Andy yells, demanding an explanation. 

“I really don’t know!” Robert shouts. “I know it is hard for you to believe right now, but the last thing I want to do is to hurt you, I never did, and I know that my presence here pains you. I know you are better off without this new version of me, the one I dislike more often than not and I can barely recognize or tolerate. But my body… My body, Andy, it is drawn to you, and I can’t understand it. It is like my soul searches for yours.” 

“Save me the metaphors and the clichés, Sullivan.” Andy hisses, but doesn’t correct him this time for using her first name, and not her right title. “I am not a sixteen years old who will fall head over heels for you if you just tell her some pretty words and sing her the greatest love song of all times.” She stands up and makes her way towards the other side of her desk. 

“When I came to your house two years ago, your father told me you are a firefighter. It didn’t require too much work for me to learn in which fire house you work, but I couldn’t do anything as long as your father was the captain of this station. When I heard there was an opening for a captain in this station, I dug around a bit and figured out he stepped down. The math was simple, and I asked Luke… Chief Ripley.” Robert corrects himself. “To help me transfer here. Andy, you have to believe me when I say I didn’t even think it through. I just saw an opportunity to be close to you and I took it. Everything happened so fast, there is no way I would have known you would be the one to notice me first!” 

“That’s the thing, Sullivan. I don’t have to believe a word that is leaving your mouth.” She hisses. “You and Ripely seem close, considering the fact that you are using his first name. I guess it is kind of a habit for you, to call your superiors by the wrong name.”

“Luke…” Sullivan corrects again. “Ripley and I go a long way back. We met when I was just out of boot-camp, in my first tour in Afghanistan. It was his third tour, I think, and the last one. We became good friends immediately, both of us lived in the city of Seattle for a while, both of us left girls, women, a great love, behind. I saved his life. It was out of nowhere, completely unexpected, but he got shot by an enemy sniper. I noticed it a split of a second before he did and jumped, got him flat on the ground, which resulted in me getting a bullet to the shoulder blade, instead of him getting a lethal bullet to the chest. He got discharged not long after that incident, and came back here, to the city. He moved up the ranks in the fire department, as I stayed and served. He kept asking me what he can do for me in return to saving his life that night, but I never knew what to ask for, until that day I heard there was an opening in this station.” 

Andy starts to walk back and forth across the room as she processes another load of new information that landed on her. This man has become a puzzle she has to keep revealing, but instead of the pieces adding up to one bigger picture, she just keeps discovering new parts she has to try and connect together. 

Of course he is a hero. Of course he is the reason her battalion chief is still alive.

This is the first time since they crossed paths again she can actually believe something he says, because it sounds so much like the Robert who left her at that train station. A man who would jump in front of live ammunition to save the life of his best friend. 

“I just don’t understand why you can’t let me live my life, because you obviously didn’t want to be a part of them!” Andy screams. 

“I want to leave you be because I know the last thing you need is for me to tear this amazing life you built for yourself apart, but I can’t stay away from you and I think it will drive me insane!” He screams, pushing the chair away and standing up as well. He is taller than her, significantly so, and he knows that when he hovers above her, his highest plays a part in the little control game they have. 

But she won’t let him forget their positions, she won’t let him intimidate her, even if it seems like a new kind of fire blazes in his eyes now. It is not the same cozy fire that she used to see as he looked at her lovingly when they were nothing more than just two kids. No, it is a different kind of fire, and there is something dangerous in it, scary, even. A fire she is afraid will pretend to keep her warm if she just lets herself get close to it, but will consume her whole if she takes one step in the wrong direction. 

Yet Andy Herrera has a fire inside of her, too, a wildfire even, some might say. 

And wildfires don’t play nice. 

She closes the distance between them, until they are almost pressed against each other. They are breathing the same air, their foreheads almost touching, and just one of them has to move a little bit forward, for the both of them to be kissing. She can’t fight the attraction, the pull inside of her belly that screams his name in so much desire, she is tempted to throw everything out the window and beg him to lock the door and take her on her desk. She is burning from the inside out, her body on fire, and her entire being is vibrant with primary want, one that comes from her body, and her mind cannot explain. 

She is sure that if she gives him her body, he will do the same thing for her. 

She feels hurt and angry, but it does nothing to change the fact that her body is drawn to him, refusing to follow the hatred she feels in her heart. 

But she is a grown woman, and she knows that succumbing to the needs of her body will only leave her in more pain than she is already in. “I hate you.” She whispers. 

She can’t understand how in a matter of a week and some change, he moved on from being the greatest love of her life, a man she stills believe will return to her waiting arms, to a man she doesn't know, she doesn’t even recognize, and that she despises. 

He moves his head so she will be able to look him in the eye, and she sees nothing. Either he is the greatest actor of their generation, or her words have no effect on him anymore. 

The moment is over, and she takes a big step back, in order to build a wall between them again. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t make your time in nineteen a living hell.” She requests. 

“Because, despite what you may think of me, Andy, and despite the fact that you want nothing to do with me in your personal life, I can guarantee you I am a hell of a good firefighter.” 

The alarm goes off, in a timing that might actually be too perfect, too convenient for a change, calling them to gain control over a fire in a restaurant not too far away. Andy pulls the door wide open and calls “Let’s see how well you stand up to that statement, Sullivan.” before she starts running toward the ladder.


	7. Chapter 7 - Burn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thank you for all the love this story has been getting! Just a quick something I was to address. First of all, the DMs on my twitter (SurreraFeels) are always open, so are the messages in all the fanfiction platform. If you want to discuss anything with me, you are more than welcome. I am aware that not everyone likes one shots, and not everyone likes reading multi chapters. I like writing both of them, and as of right now, they are all here to stay. There are parts in this chapter that are supposed to be in italics, so they will be separated from the rest, but unfortunately there isn't such option on AO3. I hope it is still understandable.   
> Hope you enjoy this one and leave me your thoughts!

"I saved every letter you wrote me  
From the moment I saw you  
I knew you were mine  
You said you were mine  
I thought you were mine"

First Burn by Lin-Manuel Miranda

******

If Andy believed the shift last week, the shift that in it’s end her world turned upside down and everything she thought she knew slipped out of her grasp, was never ending, then the first shift she has to spend with him being her subordinate defines the word excruciating in a whole other way.

She hides in her office for the most of it, only coming out when the alarm goes off, letting them know there is another incoming call for them to take care of, and to grab snacks out of the beanery after meal time is over, when she is sure no one is looking.

It is cowardly of her, she knows that much. She is used to head into danger, head into the unknown with her head held high and her eyes wide open. But she can’t bring herself to face him when they are at the station, it is bad enough she has to acknowledge his existence when they are out in the field.

He is a good firefighter, a great one, just like he claimed to be. He respects her authority, yet suggests an idea of his own from time to time, when he feels like they might benefit from what he has to say. She hates to admit it, but they are all solid thoughts, ideas she curses herself quietly under her breath for not coming up with on her own, and Andy has no other choice but to use them. He is a team-player, he doesn’t run into the fire to play the part of the hero, but rather strives to work together in order to get everyone out of the scene safe and sound.

He is a natural leader, she can read it on him, and if she didn’t know better, seeing him in action would have made her frightened of losing her newfound promotion.

He is a good firefighter, but she is a good captain, too, or she would like to believe she is at least a fair one. So at the scene, when the both of them can feel the heat of the fire burning their skin and the drops of sweat that go down the back of their necks, she treats him just as she treats everyone else, trying not to let her personal feelings get in the way.

But as they get back to the station she disappears immediately and slams the door to her office behind her, never giving him an opportunity to say even a word. She is sick and tired of trying to understand his decisions, when it seems like he doesn’t comprehend the choices he made through the years more often than not.

She can’t bring herself to face him when they are in the station, because every time she looks deep into those dark eyes, she feels everything. She feels like that sixteen years old girl again, staring at him from her usual seat in the high school cafeteria, never believing he will notice her, let alone want her. At the same time she feels like the thirty two years old woman she is now, a woman who wants to be touched, who wants the sensation of another body pressed against hers. And deep down she knows she is not looking for just another body to comfort her, to give her a release. She feels a craving deep inside her that a hookup with Jack or Ryan will never be able to quiet, neither a one night stand with some random man or another will be able to satisfy. 

And that is the reason Andy Herrera can’t trust herself around this man, so she just hides in her office until the clock on her desk shows the time she finally gets to go home, and lets Maya and Jack take care of everything that has to do with him during his first shift in the station, lets them show him around and teach him all the protocols.

Andy changes out of her uniform quickly and heads out of her office, her roommate already leaning against the front desk, a knowing smile spread across her face.

“Not a word.” Andy warns her, then fishes the keys of her car out of her bag and plays with them, letting Maya know that she is eager to go home and leave this day behind her.

Leave Robert Sullivan behind her, even if only for the short break they have until the time to start another shift rolls by again.

They leave through the barn, and Andy makes the mistake of lifting her gaze up.

Her eyes meet his immediately. She used to be able to read him so well when they were young and in love, used to be able to tell what he thinks, used to be able to know what he wanted and what he needed just by the way his expression shifted slightly.

She sees nothing in his eyes as he stares down at her, a complete darkness, and then he turns around, and the moment is over.

“Let’s go.” Maya places a soft hand on her shoulder, gently bringing her back to reality.

They slide into Andy’s car, and the first thing she does as she sits down in the vehicle is to crack up the volume of the music she has playing to the loudest point available without making either of them deaf. Andy holds onto the steering wheel hard, hard enough for her knuckles to turn white as she drives through the streets of the city.

“Can I just say I can see what you find in him? He doesn’t talk very much, but I guess that just makes him even more mysterious. And he is tall, and not at all hard on the eyes.” Maya chatters on and on, never noticing the way her friend’s breaths become heavy, the way her teeth clench and grind against each other.

“Shut up!” Andy yells. She hits the center of the steering wheel, hard, which makes the horn go off in an offensive sound. Maya jumps in her seat, and then she gives her friend a questioning look, one the other firefighter can’t see, not when her eyes are fixated on the road.

They arrive at their building not long after, yet Andy doesn’t make a move to step out of the car, her fingers still gripping the wheel. “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.” She whispers.

“I won’t talk about him ever again.” Maya promises. She makes her way around the car, opening the door on the driver’s side and tries to physically pull Andy out of the vehicle. “You don’t have to talk to me, Andy. I won’t push anymore, I swear, but at least let me help you into the house. I will make you some tea, and I will even spice it up with some bourbon if you want to, and then we can just sit and not talk until you decide you want to go to sleep.”

“Tea? Why tea? It is the middle of the summer.” Andy asks, and the question makes a smile crack on the face of her friend, a smile she wants to return, yet isn’t able to curve the ends of her mouth up just like that.

“Iced tea, then.” Maya settles, and grabs Andy by the arm as the latter finally steps out of her own car. They make their way up the elevator, and there is that feeling again, the numbness, as if she is looking down at some other person living her life. Like things just happen to her, and she is unable to resist. Like she is drifting down a current she has no control over.

As soon as the two enter the flat they share, Andy turns to her room and slams the door, locking it behind her, just in case Maya decides to step in and bother her with her iced tea and her cheerleader like pep talk.

Andy has a thing she can do that might help her gain control again. Gain control over her memories, gain control over the woman she has grown to become while he was absent, and the girl she used to be while he was still around.

Most of the items she owns are still in boxes, due to the fact her move out of her father's house was quite recent, and the fact that her line of work doesn’t leave her with much personal time to complete a project as time consuming as unpacking her belongings.

She goes through the objects frantically.

Andy turns every box upside down, empties the content of them all at her feet in a desperate attempt to retrieve what she is looking for, but it is in vain. As she searches through the items in the last box, her belongings a mess, covering her floor in a way that doesn’t allow her to look down at her carpet, she realizes they aren’t there.

She never packed them, she recalls, and they are probably stuck in some drawer beneath a pile of outdated magazines she never read, but never got rid of either, in her old bedroom in her father’s house.

Andy takes a deep breath, then storms through the door, hoping Maya will leave her to her own devices as she promised she will do.

But Maya can be relentless, even though Andy is aware she is acting fully out of worry for her friend. She holds a pitcher of iced tea in one hand and an empty glass in the other, and she gives Andy a confused gaze as she peeks at the mess the brunette left behind her. It looks as if a hurricane hit her bedroom, hard, and then disappeared out the window .

“Andy, can you please, please tell me what’s going on?” Maya begs. “Ever since you saw him in that five alarm five…” Maya doesn't continue, but Andy can fill in the blanks just the same. Her friend thinks she changed, that he changed her, and Andy can’t deny it.

He changed her in more ways than Maya can ever realize. Changed her for the better, and for the worse. He changed her life ever since he reached out a warm hand towards her as she fell on the dirty high school floor.

“It just seems like he manages to crawl deep under your skin, and I have my suspicions regarding what he has done to deserve the way you treat him, but unless you talk to me, I won’t be able to help you.” Maya insists.

“I asked you to drop it, Maya.” Andy huffs, grabbing her purse and her car keys. “I will spend a couple of hours at my dad’s place, if you need me.” Andy notifies, and closes the door behind her, leaving Maya confused, and with her mouth slightly open.

The drive to the house she was born and raised in makes Andy jittery. She didn’t let her father know of her intention to come over, and in light of the way they left things the last conversation they had, in light of the accusations she slammed against him, she isn’t sure he will be delighted his only daughter has stopped by.

Yet she does it anyway. She has to find what she is looking for, and there is nowhere else for them to be.

Her car comes to a stop with a squeak, and she parks just by the front lawn, the same lawn she and Robert used to lie on, dreaming about the stars and indulging in each other’s company.

And she hates how everything in this house reminds her of their little stolen moments together. She hates the fact that they spend all their free time in this house, sneaking behind her father’s back when he was on another twenty four hours shift. She hates the fact that her first kiss was on this lawn, and her first time was just in her old room upstairs. She hates the fact that when she will enter the bedroom, she will see the little dent in the wall she made when she threw objects against it frantically. She will be able to smell the hoodie he left behind, the one she wrapped herself in as she fell asleep on many, many different nights, even though she gave it away for charity long ago. She will be able to see in her mind’s eye the tears that used to stain her pillowcases every night for months, even though her eyes have dried a long time ago.

She hates her dad for keeping things exactly as they were, never renovating, always doing just the bare minimum to fix what is broken or replace the items that were beyond salvaging.

“Dad, open up!” Andy calls, knocking on the door loudly over and over again.

“Andrea, what’s wrong?” Pruitt asks as he sees her.

She is a mess, she knows that much. Her hair is disheveled, and there are dark circles under her eyes, indicating she couldn’t sleep last night, even in the short periods of time they had between one call to the other. She looks alarmed, and disoriented, but she doesn’t care.

“Nothing. I just realized there was something I left in my old room. Can I go up there?”

“It is still your house, Andrea.” Her father opens the door widely, letting her in. She steps quickly up the stairs before he stops her and asks. “It is him again, isn’t it?”

Andy doesn’t turn around, because she knows that he will be able to catch her lie easily with just one glimpse of her face. “No.” She shakes her head, but her voice breaks as she says the single word, and that is enough for Pruitt.

Andy closes the door to her childhood bedroom, seeking for as much privacy as she can get knowing that her father is probably lurking on the other side of the door, or at the bottom of the staircase.

She checks her phone quickly, ignoring a missed call from Maya, and two texts, one from Vic and one from Jack, asking what happened during the shift, inquiring about her well being. She turns the phone off and shoves it deep into her purse.

Then she opens the third drawer from the top of her old desk, and starts to go through the old stack of magazines, until she finds the bundle of letters she shoved in there after she realized he won’t be writing her anymore.

She forgot about them, didn’t even have the recollection of reading them, but as she pulls them out gently, the paper fragile from the many years it has seen, she has a vivid memory of her sitting on the very same bed, fat tears rolling down her eyes, and a big smile spread across her face.

And it is strange, how a human being can be so sad, yet so happy at the very same time. Devastated by the fact that he left, yet filled with faith as she read his words promising he will come back for her, over and over again.

Andy takes the band that has been holding the bunch of papers together off, and her fingers skim over the one at the top of the pile. It is the oldest one, dated just two months or so after his departure. The paper is thin, almost crumbling between her fingers. It is in a shade of yellow that reminds her of death, reminds her of a patient they once had to transfer to a hospital with a terminal liver disease. The letter is stained by her tears, but the handwriting is still readable. Andy stares at the letter, not really reading, not yet. He had his way of curving the letter S just so, and it used to make Andy laugh, for some reason she can’t recall either.

It is one of the many small details that made him her Robert. One of many small details she forgot, but then she has many others she still remembers, still holds on to, as if they were burnt into her mind and into her skin.

Andy takes a deep breath, and all the courage she can master, before her eyes land on the first word and she starts to read.  
*****

November 2004

My Andy,

The days are long and the nights are even longer. My body is exhausted, yet my mind refuses to quiet, denying me the rest I need so badly.

The days are long and tiring. They push each and every one of us to our personal limit, and far beyond that. They make men, soldiers, out of us, instead of the boys we were not too long ago. The intense training takes a toll. Takes a toll on my body, takes a toll on my mind, but I won’t quit, I can promise you that much. I won’t quit, I will do whatever it takes to stand in the front as they will call the names of everyone who made it to the finish line successfully. I will do whatever it takes to make my parents proud, to avenge their deaths, and the deaths of many others, so they will be able to finally, finally rest in peace.

I hope you are proud, too, even though I know this isn’t what you wanted. That isn’t how you imagined the life you will be having.

I don’t think I have ever told you that, but I am proud of you, Andy. Proud of the person you grew to become in front of my eyes, even if we knew each other for just a year and a little bit more.

Some of the guys around asked me about the tattoo. I choked and couldn’t answer, so I just told them there is a girl, a woman out there beyond the stars, that has a matching symbol on her skin, waiting for me to come back to her arms. They keep giving me hard times for that one ever since, even though many of them have a significant other they had to leave behind, just like I did.

As I said before, the days are long, but the nights are even longer. Because in the nights my thoughts drift to what I have left behind, and I have no other choice but to dwell on it. I probably won’t be there for your prom, and your graduation, and I know they seem far away, but believe me, time flies by.

Sometimes the whole year we spent together feels like just a day. Sometimes it feels like I have known you for an eternity.

And as I lie in the little makeshift bed, I think about you. About the way you kiss terribly, yet there is nothing I wouldn’t give to taste those lips again, even if it has been only two months since I last had the chance to feel you. I can still feel your soft hair between my fingertips. I recall the way you always picked up on the little things I said, always changed the meaning. I recall that day I met your father. I know he didn’t approve of me then, when I fled out of your house, but I wonder if that might have changed, doing what I am doing now. People tend to call the men and women in uniform heroes, even though I don’t feel like one.

Maybe it will come later.

I like to recall the way we used to sneak to the roof of one of the buildings next to our school, and you taught me how to dance salsa with so much patience. I have no idea how you could have possibly mastered so much tolerance. I would have given up on myself right after lesson number one, if it weren’t for my teacher.

There is nothing I wouldn’t give just to hear your laughter again, as I twirled you around over and over again until you were dizzy. And yet, even though I would have given everything to have you by my side, to have everything, I know that at the end of the day I made the right choice. I also know how much the choice I made hurt you, and it kills me.

I hope you are still laughing, even though I am not there to hear that sweet sound anymore.

I love you,   
Your Robert.

*******

Andy folds the little paper and places it right back at the top of the stack where she found it. She can sense a fat tear streaming down her face, hot and salty, leaving marks down her cheeks. They have probably started dropping while she was reading the letter, but she was so engaged in it, absorbing the meaning of every word written by a young man who used to be hers, to the young girl she used to be.

It is hard for her to grasp the fact that the man who wrote her this love letter, whose words were like poetry, bleeding and honest, is the same man who stood on the catwalk just earlier, and whose expression was blank and whose eyes were unreadable.

She brushes the tears off of her cheeks with the back of her hand. She promised herself she won’t cry over this man, not even one more time, and yet here she finds herself.

Andy’s fingers flip through the letters. There aren’t many of them, and she obviously can’t possibly remember what each of them contains.

She is in pain. She is picking at old scars that never healed quite properly, and her inevitable end will be to bleed. But her fingers work on their own accord, as they pick another letter from the middle of the pile, and unfolds it.

Her finger skims over the paper, over the words of the letter written about six months after the first one has been sent. Her eyes are still watery, the tears clouding her sight. She blinks over and over again, until she adjusts, and the teardrops don’t bother her as much.

Her hands are shaking as she begins to read.

*****

May 2005 

Dear Andy,

I am sorry it took me so long to answer your last letter. Things are different after boot camp, when you are stationed next to the front line. When every day can be your last day, even though I am trying not to dwell on it longer than I should. Everything is still new, but I get used to it a little bit more with every day that passes. I made some friends, and I have some people who watch my back.

Please don’t spend too much time being worried about me, I am more than fine, I promise.

In the hard and endless moments, I think about my parents. I think about the reason I am where I am. I think about the turns my life has taken, all those little events that led me to you, and also made me end up where I am today.

I still think about you.

It has been nine months since the last day we saw each other, and I am terrified of the moment when I will realize we spend more time apart than together.

I am grateful for the time we had in each other’s arms. Grateful for every kiss, and every hand hold, and every moment we spend staring into each other’s eyes. Grateful for this thing we have, knowing that a lot of the people walking this earth don’t get to enjoy this kind of love, let alone having it at such a young age.

Yet sometimes I wonder if it would have been easier on the both of us if we never met at all. If I never reached my hand out to help you get up from that dirty floor. If you didn’t invite me to have lunch with you the next day. If I haven’t spent the entire break staring at you, not listening to a word Ryan said, and not taking a single bite out of my lunch either.

It would have saved us so much pain and heartbreak.

At the same time, it would have taken so many happy memories away from the both of us.

I guess that you gain some and you lose some. It is one of the many things I learned on my flesh in the last nine months.

Take care of yourself Andy, would you? For me?

Love,   
Robert.

*********

Her tears have dried in the while it took her to read the random letter she picked up. It is shorter than the first one, and she wonders if his letters to her kept getting shorter and shorter, until they stopped appearing in her mailbox completely.

The length of his letters, it is another detail she can’t recall. She has all of the letters he sent her right there in her left hand, kept each and every one of them hidden away during the many years she waited for his return, but she is scared to death to read even another one. She is scared of how she will perceive him next time she will see him at the station, scared it will be more like the teenager he used to be rather than the man he is now. She is scared of how it will make her feel, reminiscing the timeline of their first year or so apart.

She is scared it will end up with another heartbreak, an inevitable one, heading her way like a train-wreck she can’t seem to be able to avoid.

She looks at the last few letters in the bundle. They are different, it is her neat handwriting on the envelope, rather than his messy one. It has the details of the last location she was supposed to send her letters to on the front, and her own address on the back.

These were sent back to her after no one damned them, she recalls. They never got to him. He never read them.

She picks the last one in the bunch, and opens it carefully.

*****

April 2006

My Robert,

This is my last attempt to get to you. I am not sure why my letters keep coming back, but I am making this one last try to reach out to you. Maybe, by some miracle, this one will find its way to you. It is Easter time rather than Christmas, but who knows. Maybe Easter wishes come true as well.

I have decided to take a gap year. It is not very common, I know, but I need time.

I wish you were here to help me make the right decision, to help me choose the right path for me, just like you did for yourself. You would have probably scolded me, convincing me to fight my dad to let me join the fire academy right after I graduate from high school at all costs, instead of going to college, but I am tired of fighting, Robert, and he wouldn’t listen anyway. I don’t have the strength in me to engage in another battle while you aren’t by my side, cheering me on. You would have probably told me that life is short, and that I shouldn’t waste another moment not doing the one thing I know I was born to do. You would have probably thought about your parents as you said so.

As I keep writing to you ever since I read the first letter you sent me, I am proud of you, even though if it was up to me, you would have been here by my side. I hope you can be proud of me, too.

I hope you are happy, Robert. Wherever you are now.

I am about to graduate from high school without you. It feels weird. The corridors of Washington High remind me of you. The cafeteria, the music hall, my locker you used to shove me against and kiss me when no one was looking. If I close my eyes really tight, I can still feel your hand against my lower back as I walk through the hallways. You were never ashamed of us, of me, even though I am younger than you, and this is one of the many reasons I love you.

Stay safe for me, Robert. I want you back in my arms, safe and sound.

Happy Easter.

Love,

Your Andy.

*****

Andy is shivering, her foot thumping nervously against the floor. She places the last letter she opened back in its exact place in the pile, just like she did with the other two letters she read.

As she makes her way back down the stairs, she clenches hard the small bundle of papers in her hand. She lets out the breath she had caught in her lungs when she notices her father is gone, not waiting for her on the sofa in the living room, not watching and surveying every step she makes.

She finds a box of matches in the first drawer to the left in the kitchen cabinet, where her father kept them her entire life. Maybe the fact that he never changes anything is a good thing, after all. 

She makes her way to the fire place, standing empty at this time of year, and sits at a safe distance away from it.

She unties the letters bunched together, places them in the fireplace, and then lights a match.

And just like that, the saddest year of her life is going up in flames.

She watches the little fire she made from a safe distance. She has seen her fair share of fires being a firefighter. But the fires she fights usually consumes the memories of someone else, yet the fire she just lit takes with it memories of her own.

The little flames are hypnotizing, in colors of red, orange and yellow, but they don’t have enough paper to last very long, and in a blink of an eye the fire dies down, and Andy’s memories die down with it.

As she makes sure the fire is out completely and that nothing is about to reignite, she feels lighter. She feels like the stone that has been burdening on her since the day she saw him in the five alarms fire, or maybe even since the day he left her at the train station, the giant rock she had been carrying on her back, is gone.

And maybe that was exactly what she needed to really leave the memories behind, to leave the hope he would suddenly become the person who wrote those letters all over again, and start anew, flip to a new, clean slate in the book that forms her life.

As her father walks into the living room, he complains the house smells like an ashtray, and while he opens the windows and lets some fresh air in, he asks her what she has been up to.

Her answer is nothing.

Nothing at all.


	8. Chapter 8 - Breathe Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thank you for reading and reviewing!  
> Answering a question that been asked- yes, Pruitt knows Andy and Robert met in the present. It was mentioned in chapter 4.   
> I have a feeling I am going to get a lot of mixed reviews about this one, so I am going to just say it. This chapter takes place only in the past. The next few chapters will have a lot of things going on in the present, so I felt like some of Andy's past story was necessary. You can skip this one if you don't feel like reading it, that's ok, it won't hurt the understanding of the following chapter, but I think it was important for me to tell this part of this story too. Just wanted to give a heads up so no one will be disappointed.   
> As always, leave me a comment if you like to, and I hope you enjoy!

"Car is parked, bags are packed, but what kind of heart doesn't look back?"

-Breathe Again by Sara Bareilles 

********

Labor Day, 2004 

He is back. Her Robert. 

Andy can barely hear the knock on the door of her bedroom. It is soft, something almost inaudible, something she knows was meant only for her ears. He probably doesn’t want to catch the attention of her father, or Ryan’s, who has been sleeping on the couch in their living room for the last three days, since he found her soaking wet in the train station. 

“You are back.” Andy breaths. She rises herself to a sitting position on her bed, her arms supporting her weight. She takes him in, her eyes scanning his appearance. He wears a set of uniform and he looks as handsome as he ever did, maybe even more than she remembers him to be. 

“I just couldn’t go without feeling the terrible way you kiss one last time.” He smiles. He is shining, surrounded by some kind of an aurora. He walks to the side of her bed, then leans in to kiss her. 

She can’t feel anything. Can’t feel his mouth pressed against hers, can’t feel the way his teeth used to bite her lower lip gently when he wanted more, when he wanted to deepen the kiss. 

When Andy wakes up, her pillow is wet with her own tears and her bedroom is freezing, even though she has a thick blanket covering her, pulled all the way to her neck. She looks around the room, and a part of her, the small flicker of hope she still holds on to, even after he took all her faith with him on that train, expects to see him leaning against the doorframe, a smug smile on his face. A part of her expects to feel his warm, naked body hiding between the sheets, terrified of the moment her father will come home. 

She searches in the covers, her hands roaming blindly beneath them, but she finds nothing. 

She has been dreaming, exactly like she has the last three days. 

Her dreams are always the same. In all of them, he comes back to her, and when she wakes up, when she is still half asleep, she always searches through the room, always hoping this time has been the reality. Always wishing that after Ryan carried her home, Robert decided to turn around and come find her. 

And as she comes back to wakefulness, she is always heartbroken, as heartbroken as she was three days ago when he left her on that platform, sobering up from the stupid fantasy. 

He won’t be coming for you, she tells herself, and yet she still holds on to that foolish, unrealistic sliver of hope. 

She sneaks a glance at her bedside clock, even though the time of day doesn’t really matter to her. What difference does it make if it is time for breakfast, or lunch, or dinner? 

The clock shows it is almost noon in an offensive bright red light. It is the middle of the day, and yet her bedroom is dark, almost pitch black. She barely slept in the last three days. She is restless, tossing and turning in bed, never finding quite the right position for her to slither to the land of the dreaming. When she does manage to sleep, when her mind is finally as tired her body is, it is in weird hours of the day, and never for a long period of time, that awful dream keeps waking her up over and over again. 

Andy pulls the hoodie he left behind tighter around her body, and as she closes her eyes, she imagines it is his arms that wrap her. It is a simple piece of clothing, a grey, thick garment that says the name of his old hometown. It is nothing special, but he used to wear it as often as he possibly could, and when she asked him to leave it behind for her, he didn’t hesitate. 

She didn’t wash it since the last time he used it, and so as she breathes in deeply, she can still smell him on the fabric. 

There is another big, fat tear rolling down Andy’s eye, and she does nothing to brush it away. 

Let it fall. Let everything fall. 

She can hear footsteps outside her door, someone walking back and forth, not having the courage to knock and let his presence known. It must be her father or Ryan, the only two people who have been a constant in her life since she can remember. 

She is grateful for them. Grateful for Ryan driving to the train station and bringing her home. If it weren’t for him, she would have probably still been there, crying her heart out, earning looks of sympathy from the passers-by. She is grateful, she really is, but she wants to be left alone. 

Andy wants to scream at the direction of the door, wants to yell at whomever it is to go away, but there is no sound coming out of her mouth, her throat dry, her head spinning. 

She knows that her father and Ryan have been taking turns patrolling outside her bedroom for most hours in the last three days. Andy believes they are afraid she will physically hurt herself, that she will do something that she won’t be able to take back. 

Well, if that is the case, they can stand down. She is in pain, but she isn’t stupid. He will come back for her, he promised to do so, and he will die from the inside seeing she has cuts on her wrists, or hearing she has tried to do anything to harm her body. 

She barely left her bed, barely eaten, showered maybe once. She has a bottle of water standing on the nightstand, but she doesn’t drink out of it as much as she should, even this simple task seems agonizing in her eyes. She needs the water, the tears draining her body, but she can’t bring herself to care. 

“Andy?” She can hear Ryan’s voice coming from the other side of the door. It is nothing above a whisper, and she knows he doesn’t want to startle her, doesn’t want to get on her bad side, doesn’t want to earn the same reaction he got when he walked her into her house after he picked her up from the train station. 

After she just arrived home, she acted in a manner she is not proud of. Her father and Ryan meant well, she knows that much. They wanted to make sure she was able to stand on her own two feet, but they were hovering. They stood too close, they talked too loud, and she snapped. She yelled, and she cursed. She ran up to her bedroom and started throwing objects against the wall frantically. She slammed the door in their faces, and she made it a point to avoid eye contact with either of them during the last three days. 

But if she wants to be respected, if she wants them to stop treating her with kid gloves, she has to start acting like an adult, or at least pretend to be one. 

When Andy doesn’t answer to the sound of her name, Ryan tries again. “Andy, I brought you some lunch from that burger place on Broadway you really like.” He opens the door to a crack, and when he is sure she is not going to lash out at him, he enters the room and places the brown paper bag on her nightstand, just next to her bed. 

Her father hates it when she takes food up to her bedroom, but it is just one out of many on the list of things she doesn’t care about at the moment, and if Ryan was the one to bring up the takeout bag, she thinks her father decided to be last strict about his rules, given the situation. 

“It is labor day.” Andy states, as if Ryan didn’t know that already. “How come it was open?” 

“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “I just went there to try my luck.” There is an awkward silence spreading across the room, alongside the mouth watering scent of the food her best friend just dropped off. “I will be downstairs if you need me.” Ryan lets her know, then turns to the door.

“Wait.” Andy begs. Ryan turns around and looks surprised by her request, yet he obeys, knows exactly what she needs him to do. He kicks off his shoes and crawls into her bed. He leans against the wall, and Andy props against his body, lets her head fall back and her eyes close. 

And she cries again, the tears streaming silently down her cheeks. 

That smell, that logo on the paper bag holding the food she has no intention to touch. After that disastrous first lunch with her father, Andy grew to think about the small, homey burger joint as their place. Hers and Robert’s. They used to come by quite often, used to sit down at the same booth every single time, sharing a plate of onion rings and talking for hours. Every single employee in that burger place already knew them by name, as they greeted them warmly when they arrived, or had to ask them to leave, being the last customers still around way past closing time. Sometimes they just sat there in their booth, surrounded by nothing but warm silence, not letting out a single word as they stared into each other’s eyes, grinning at each other like the two love struck teenagers they were. 

She is still in love, painfully so, but she can’t say she is as intoxicated by it anymore. His decisions made her grow up, sober up from her dreams, whether she wanted to or not. 

And it was their little secret, they would have disappeared for hours to a place no one could find them, hiding in plain sight. Ryan doesn’t know that, she kept her whereabouts even from her best friend, so he doesn’t understand how painful it is. How that place reminds her of him, of the way he liked to interlace their fingers above the table, of the way he used to smudge a bit of strawberry milkshake on her upper lip, just so he could kiss it clean a moment later. 

“I don’t want to go back.” She voices her deepest fear. She has dreaded the moment she had to go back to school, back to acting completely normal, or at least pretending she is still her usual self. The long weekend was a small grace, but it is almost over, every minute that passes brings her closer to the moment she would have to leave her room, leave her house, and pretend the world is not falling apart on her head, collapsing into itself. 

Her father has been patient and forgiving, uncharacteristically so, and Andy thinks that deep down, he knows how much Robert means to her, even though he gave the younger man a hard time every chance he had. But she knows he won’t let her lie in bed and feel sorry for herself while she is supposed to attend her classes. 

“I know.” Ryan says, rubbing her arms up and down reassuringly. He shifts his position towards her nightstand, and he is able to grab a french-fry out of the beg, shoving it into Andy’s mouth. “Here, eat this. Fried carbs always make me feel better.” 

Andy knows that it is supposed to be a joke, but she can’t bring herself to laugh. The only thing she can do is chew obediently on the potato. Her tummy growls, letting the two of them know she is indeed hungry. 

Ryan stays there and helps her eat slowly, until they consume together the entire meal he brought, never leaving the bed, never changing the position they are in more than what is absolutely necessary. 

And as he feeds her slowly, Andy thinks that she won’t be whole, not as long as the man who is part of her is somewhere across the globe, but maybe, just maybe, with the help of her best friend and her father, someday she will be able to breathe again. 

**************

Thanksgiving 2004 

It is another holiday without him. 

She had made it through Labor day, had walked around the streets of the city on Halloween without a costume, denying every party invitation Ryan sent her way, telling him he is better off without her, anyway. 

It isn’t as if she has been the most pleasant company over the course of the last few months anyway. 

It is almost the season. Come tomorrow morning, the colors of the city will change from the leaves’ yellow and orange to candy canes’ red, white and green. The cornucopias and pumpkins that you can still see decorating the streets will be replaced with nutcrackers and mistletoes, a painful reminder that this year, Andy has no one to spend the most magical time of the year with. 

A painful reminder of the kisses and the snowball fights she has shared with him just a year ago. Of snuggling in front of the fireplace, pressing herself impossibly close to him, and the way he laughed when she admitted quite shamefully she thinks Home Alone is the best Christmas movie that was ever made. 

So no, this Thanksgiving, she isn’t feeling rather grateful, but her father had quite enough of her behavior. Pruitt knows she is still hurting, knows the extent of the heartbreak she feels. It isn’t as if he never had a first romance, his first high school sweetheart, which led to his first heartbreak. 

Andy drags her feet into the firehouse, carrying a casserole dish in her hand.

She tried to get herself out of the whole uncomfortable situation, tried to convince her father she has a headache, or the flu. But he would hear none of that, lecturing her on and on about the meaning of tradition and family, and how she should respect not only him, but also every firefighter in the station, every man who practically raised her over the years. 

He talked and he talked, until Andy finally surrendered, admitted that physically, she felt just fine, and agreed to grace them with her presence. 

She places the dish on the already set table in the beanery, being quite late, as she hears footsteps making their way into the room. “Uncle Snuffy, Uncle Charlie!” Andy runs towards the two older men. 

They hug her tightly, each in his turn, and for the first time in almost three long months, Andy doesn’t have to pretend. She is genuinely happy to see the two men who raised her. She can recall them spending time with her when she was still young enough to play with lego pieces and toy cars. She has a recollection of them leaning over the desk in the captain’s office, trying to help her solve a problem in math of a question in English, and failing quite miserably. 

They were the ones she came up to, blabbering with no end about that new boy she liked, but couldn’t bring herself to tell him so, to make him more than just her friend. They gave her advice, and when they told her to never have sex without a condom, and more importantly, keep the fact that she is having sex hidden away from her father if she wants that certain boy to live, she blushed, her face turned into a deep shade of red, which made the two man roll in a fit of laughter. 

“How is that boyfriend of yours?” Charlie asks after Andy is done greeting the both of them.

Andy turns white. “My… My dad didn’t tell you?” She inquires. They shake their heads, telling her silently that no, her father didn’t share that information with his closest friends. She is grateful, even though she finds it strange. This firehouse has been her second home, and sometimes, more often than not, it was her first. So she knows the men of this station share everything with each other, their days and their nights, their mealtimes and their most personal stories and secrets. 

“He has left.” She tries to keep the story as short and as summarized as it can possibly be. The wound he had left on her heart is still new, raw and bleeding, and the last thing she wants is to talk about it. The last thing she wishes for is to start crying in front of everyone on a holiday dinner. Snuffy is about to add something, but Andy reaches her hand out, signaling she doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. 

She is saved by the rest of her father’s shift appearing in the beanery. They are covered in sweat and dirt, and as soon as they find their place near the table, the room fills with the scent of ashes, rather than the intoxicating aroma of cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. 

“Some idiot decided he knows how to fry an entire turkey. He was obviously clueless.” Her father explains without her needing to ask. 

“Look who the cat dragged in.” Andy calls at Ryan, who walks slowly at the back of the firefighters line. 

“I thought that if I made you come down here for dinner, it was only fair to force the kid who was using our sofa as a bed for who knows how long to be here as well.” Her father shrugs. 

“Hey! I only did it to show support for Andy!” Ryan calls, and the entire team laughs, even though they don’t quite understand what the fuss is all about. “And besides, I am here for the food.” He lets them know as he pulls out his chair and falls into it. Ryan reaches a hand to try and fill his plate, but then he notices that other than him, there is no movement around the table. He straightens himself, trying to act like nothing happened. 

“Too bad, Ryan, because every year before dinner starts, we each say one thing we are grateful for.” Andy grins.

“Oh come on!” Ryan protests, covering his face with his hands. 

“And I think that you should start.” Pruitt adds.

Good, that means Andy has quite some time to come up with one lie or the other. 

“Are you serious?” Ryan inquires theatrically, but he does as he was ordered anyway. It takes a long while, and by the time they make their way halfway across the table, Andy can almost hear her belly growling. She hasn’t had much appetite over the last three months, and she noticed she has lost a substantial amount of weight, a fact she is trying to hide away from her father by wearing baggy clothes. But the food looks great and smells even better, although the room still smells like a mixture of a campfire and a gym’s locker room. For the first time in a long while, Andy is genuinely hungry. 

It feels like forever until it is finally, finally her turn. She opens her mouth to blurt out something, one thing or another, but before she has a chance to do so the alarm goes off, calling her dad and his team into another rescue. 

Andy watches as the firefighters run out, leaving her alone with Ryan and the food, which gets cold by the moment. Ryan seizes the opportunity and grabs a slice of cornbread, shoving it into his mouth ungracefully and chews loudly before Andy has the opportunity to scold him for stealing food. 

“I guess I have nothing to be thankful for anyway.” Andy shrugs. 

“Is that so?” Ryan asks while he chews, and Andy hits him on the arm playfully. 

“You are so disgusting.” 

He swallows, then pulls out an object out of his front pocket. She manages to take just a glimpse, and as she understands what he holds in his possession, her heart leaps in her chest. “Give it to me!” Andy demands. She rises from her chair and drops it down in the process, but she makes no effort to pick it back up. She reaches her hand to snatch the envelope out of his grip, but her best friend is faster, and he manages to escape. 

“Dear Andy…” Ryan starts, pretending to read what is inside, even though Andy can see he didn’t open the envelope. 

“Ryan, I am not kidding!” She yells. He thinks it is funny, though, thinks they are playing some kind of a game, so he runs down the stairs, making it hard for her to reach what belongs to her, the letter that was written only for her eyes to see. 

She flies down the stairs, screaming and cursing as she chases him. Someone left the TV on, and the music from the parade plays in the background. 

They ran around the fire house until the both of them are out of breath, and for a moment they are not seventeen years old anymore, but seven, and Andy can almost hear the voice of her mother telling her to slow down, warning her of an unavoidable injury if she keeps running down the stairs just so. 

He reaches his hand out and gives her the envelop. Andy brushes her fingers on top of the letter spelling her name in his hand writing, and decides to hold on to it, to read it a little later, when she will be in the privacy of her room and will be able to let her emotions out, fully. 

Andy might have something to be grateful of, after all. 

**********

Easter 2006 

Andy’s hand is shaking as she is trying to write the letter, like it always does.

It takes her time to get it under control, to write neatly enough for the ink not to smear all over the place, making one giant mess. 

She is always looking for the right words, it seems, even now, even after a few of her letters were sent back to her, unread and unwanted. She always debates what parts of her life she prefers to keep to herself, and what he will be glad to hear. What she needs him to know, and what she can tell him later, when he will be back in her arms. 

She always has so much to say, yet so little room. She has a thousand words of love for him, but they never quite fit onto paper. 

Her hand is shaking, and there is a large pile of crumpled papers inside the trash can, and there is a giant rock sinking deep in her belly. 

Her last letter to him. Her last attempt. 

His letters just stopped arriving a few months back. 

She won’t admit it, but ever since his first letter arrived, she has been stalking the poor mailman, waiting eagerly for him to pass by their house and slide something into their box. Everyday as she would arrive from school, rain or shine, she would check the box. More often than not, she would only find there a bunch of bills her father had to pay and a random magazine she couldn’t remember she was still subscribed to. 

Yet sometimes, a letter was there, sitting in the metal box, waiting for her to open it up. She would pull it out gently, as if it was sacred, and then she would run up the stairs and slam the door to her bedroom shut. She would cry and she would laugh, and most of all, she would miss him, miss him so much that her stomach turned and her heart felt like it was made of lead. 

And then they just stopped coming, out of the blue, and instead, her letters started to return. Every time she found another letter in the box her heart would jump in her chest, and every time it would sink down to her stomach when she found out it was her own letter being sent to her yet again. 

This is it, this is the last letter she is going to write to him. This is her last try, and she is going to let him know that much. It is stupid, the thought that he might write back to her if he knows she isn’t going to send any more envelopes his way. It isn’t as if he ignores her. The letters come back, unopened and unread, and Andy has a strong feeling he is not there anymore, wherever it is that she sends her letter to, and he just didn’t inform her of the new place she has to send her letter to. 

She has no way to know where he is. She has no way to know if he is dead or alive, if he is injured. If he is lying in a hospital somewhere in Iraq, or in Germany. For all she knows, he might be lying in that hospital three blocks away from her father’s station. 

The thought makes the tremors worse, and now her entire body is twitching. 

Andy stills, takes one deep breath, and starts to write whatever it is that is on her heart. She used to try to hide, used to tell him only about the good events, even though they were few and far between. She never told her about the long, sleepless night. She never told him about the times she woke up in the middle of the night, her pillowcase wet with her tears, tears she didn’t notice she shed as she was dreaming about him. She never told him about how her grades deteriorated. 

She never told him about the few months after he left that didn’t have any meaning. 

She never told him how hard it was for her to pull herself together, but she knows that when he comes back, he will expect to see the same girl he left behind. She isn’t the same person she used to be when he was still around, she knows that much, but now she is smiling almost as often as she did before he entered her life. 

It took her a long time, but she found a way to breathe again. 

“Andy, come on, we are going to be late for the egg hunt!” Her father yells on the other side of the door. 

“I am not a child anymore!” She huffs in annoyance, loud enough for him to hear, but she writes a bit faster nonetheless. 

It takes her a few minutes, but she is done, sliding the paper into a white envelope and closes it tightly. 

“Let’s go.” Andy coaxes, and now her dad is the one who has to chase her, has to almost run in order to keep up with her pace. She slides the letter into a box, and there is a little sliver of hope in her that by some miracle it is going to be different this time, just like she wrote to him in the letter. 

She is not a child anymore, not by any means, but her father’s co-workers have children, and many of them. As they arrive at the station, Andy can see two dozens of kids running around outside, high on sugar from all the chocolate bunnies they munched on while their parents were too busy talking to each other, catching up on anything and everything new since the last families gathering on Christmas. Some of them are painting eggs, the others are hunting for them, and some of them just run around the station without any purpose, until their heads are dizzy and they are a little bit too close to throwing up all the sweets they had earlier. 

Andy easily recognizes some of the kids, and apparently they recognize her as well. They wave at her from afar, calling the young woman’s name in adoration as they demand she will come and join them until lunch, a meal Andy knows none of them will eat, guessing by their sticky fingers and chocolate covered little faces, will be ready. 

The children’s holiday joy is contagious, and Andy finds herself smiling wildly as she joins their activities. Maybe it is the way they are all so hopeful and carefree, not knowing or caring how much sadness and sorrow life still has in store for them, that makes Andy feel like she can breathe again. 

***********

Fourth of July, 2007 

Andy grips the old hoodie as if her life depends on it. 

The garment is old, the color faded from many wears and washes. The fabric is not as soft as it used to be, but overall, it still looks the same as it did the day he handed it over to her, almost three years ago. 

She looks back and forth between the three boxes lying on the floor, each of them already full with her belongings, each of them saying something different on the front, written in her neat handwriting in black sharpie. 

Trash, Donate, Take. 

She has another, fourth option. She can keep it in her room, she can have it waiting for her in her closet. She will be able to wear it when she comes home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. She can shove it to the far back corner, and when she will need it, when she will miss him terribly like she still does from time to time, she could just wrap herself in it, even though his scent faded off of it a long while ago. 

She is oh so tempted to do so, oh so tempted to fold the hoodie neatly and flag it as a keep in her mind, just like she did with the bunch of letters she has stored away in her desk. 

It is one of the last things she has to hold on to, to remember the time they shared. To remind her of him.

Yet it is a new, fresh start for Andy, a new chance for her to start over in a place she will no longer be the sad, pathetic, heartbroken girl, walking around the hallways like a ghost ,missing terribly the boyfriend who left her behind and didn’t look back, not even once. 

It is funny how a single object can hold you back, can make you cling to a past you are not living in anymore. A past that hasn’t been a part of her present for almost three long years now. 

Andy folds the hoodie neatly, and places it at the top of the pile inside the box marked donate.

As she does, she feels like she can breathe again, like there is finally, finally, for the first time in three years, enough oxygen in the air to fill her lungs comfortably. 

She is restless, her fingers moving, jumping, wanting to reach into the box and grab it back. She wants to take back the decision she made just a second ago. She wants to wear it again, she wants to wrap herself in it, even though she hasn’t done so for a while now. She came to a realization some time ago that with every wear, with every look she sneaks in that mirror while the oversized hoodie hangs over the curves of her small body, she cries. There is always a fat tear rolling down her cheek, and she is done crying about the time they have lost. 

She is not even twenty years old yet, and they will have all the time in the world to make new memories once he is back in her arms. She will just have to cling onto the good moments they shared, the jokes and the kisses and the dances, until he comes back. 

But what if he will arrive back soon, and he will want his belongings back? She can’t just donate them, it has been almost three years, his tour must be coming to an end sooner rather than later, and he will come back. 

The thought makes no sense, and Andy is quick to shake the false hope out of her head. She hasn’t heard from him for over a year and a half now. No letters, no calls, no visits. She is certain he will come back for her, but she has no way to know when, so she is better off keeping the faith on low heat, keeping the image of what will happen when he comes back at the back of her mind, where it can't bother her on a daily basis. 

“I have never seen your bedroom so tidy.” Ryan walks in, scanning the half empty space with his eyes. “You did a good job, Andy.”

“You sound like my dad when he walked in and was actually able to see the carpet for the first time in forever.” Andy jokes. 

She scans the room as well, her eyes roaming across the empty, freshly painted walls. It took a few days to get the room sorted, to decide what belongings she needs with her in her new, tiny college dorm, and what she can get rid of, or donate to people in need. She didn’t mind the time consuming project one bit. In fact, she used it as a blissful distraction, as a way to avoid thinking, or worse, talking about what she did on a long night a few weeks back. 

Ryan wraps his arm around her shoulder and kisses the top of her head. There is something about it, something about this act of possessiveness, that makes Andy flinch, makes her feel uncomfortable. She moves away, leaving his arm leaning against nothing but thin air. 

“Look, Ryan…” Andy starts. 

“You know, I was just thinking…” He speaks over her.

“You start.” Andy prompts. 

“I was actually coming here to see if maybe you want to go to the fair, or a barbeque, or to a party? Maybe we could even stay to watch the fireworks?” Ryan suggests. “Your college isn’t very far away, and you will still have plenty of time to get settled if we leave tomorrow morning.” 

“I don’t feel like celebrating.” Andy shrugs. She knows that no one will be coming over on Independence Day, but she needs her fresh start, and she needs it now more than ever. She needs it today, and not a day later. She doesn’t plan on waiting even a moment longer than necessary. 

Ryan nods. He is about to pick up the box that says take, before she starts to speak. “Look, about what happened between us the other night.” 

“You don’t have to say anything.” Ryan offers her an out. He is back to standing close to her, too close, a distance that was once reserved to another man, and him only. Ryan brushes a stray piece of hair away from her face and tucks it behind her ear, just like Robert used to do, and if Andy shuts her eyes tight, she can imagine it is his hands, imagine him saying to her softly she is a terrible kisser. So Andy leans into the touch, which does nothing to help the message she wants to convey. 

It was a bad idea. 

“Ryan, that night was a mistake.” Andy breaths out. “I felt lonely, and it has been so long since a man touched me like that. I love you as my best friend, and I really hope that we can stay that way. But what happened that night, it can’t happen again, and I am so sorry if you got the wrong message out of the whole thing.” 

Deep down Andy knows that it will happen again, she will keep falling into that place as long as Robert won’t be back. Because it is Ryan, and she knows him, and unlike the man she yearns for, Ryan is there, right at her reach, ready and available. And she is lonely, and even though she felt as if she was cheating, as if she was betraying the two of them, the man her heart belongs to, and her best friend, it felt nice, too nice for her not to do it again.

Up until that night, she forgot how good it felt, to have another body against you, to have someone else to pleasure you, someone else to enjoy that act with you.

“Oh.” Ryan takes a step back. He is silent. Andy knows him so well, well enough to see the thoughts running behind his eyes before he blurts out “This is about him, isn’t it?”

Andy nods, because of course it is about him. A part of her knows it will always be about him. 

“You might not remember that, since it has been a few years, but he broke your heart, Andy, and I was the one there picking up the pieces, day after day, week after week, season after season, until you were finally whole again without him.” 

“And I will forever be grateful, Ryan, but…” 

“You still love him.” He finishes her sentence for her.

Andy nods. She used to tear up whenever someone mentioned the man she loves, or reminded her of how greatly she still loves him. But now she just looks up at her best friend, and he can see nothing but acceptance in her eyes. 

“Come on.” He coaxes. “Let’s load your things into the trunk.” 

They are back to being themselves in a blink of an eye, the same Ryan and Andy who grew up together, joint at the hip. The same best friends who spend every holiday and every school break together since they can remember. The boy and the girl who have seen each other through thick and thin, through the highest highs and the lowest lows. 

Ryan carries the box with the few items she planned to haul with her to her new life, and Andy walks right behind him, rolling her suitcase behind her, banging the wheels down with every step she takes. 

He places them in the trunk of his car, and as Andy is about to go back and take care of the last two boxes she left in her room, she is met with her father, who blocks her access back to her bedroom. 

“I will wait in the car.” Ryan points out at the door, disappearing quickly. 

“I still have two boxes left.” Andy lets her father know. She is eager to go, eager to get out of this house that reminds her of him so much and head into her new beginning. 

“I will take care of them.” Her father promises. He looks her deep in the eye before he adds. “I am proud of you, Andrea. Even though I know this is not what you wanted.” 

“I am going to come back and get into the fire academy.” She lets him know. It isn’t a question, isn’t a speculation. She is going to get in and finish successfully, she knows that much. She has been using her gap year to train, among everything else, to get herself to a peak physical shape, and to learn everything there is to know about fire hazards and rescue protocols. 

Pruitt pulls his daughter into a hug. He isn’t that kind of dad, the one that showers his daughter with affection, and at nineteen, Andy knows her father is a rather enthusiastic believer of the tough love kind of parenthood. 

But they are not going to see each other for a long while now, so when he wraps his arms around her, she does the same. “I don’t have a single doubt you will.” 

They separate quickly, saying their goodbyes, and Andy can feel Pruitt still watching her as she makes her way to the door. She turns around, as if she remembers a thing of the utmost importance. She gives him a weak smile, and says. “If he comes back, if he knocks on the door, can you please let him know where I am?” Andy asks. 

“Of course.” Pruitt nods. 

Andy gives the house she was born and raised in another once over, then slides into Ryan’s car, telling him she is ready to hit the road. 

As Ryan pulls out of the driveway slowly, Andy twists her neck, looking at the house getting smaller and smaller until it fades away completely. 

When she can’t see anything anymore, can’t see the porch or the front lawn, she decides that from now on, she will look forward, and not back. 

As the old car moves through the traffic of the city, she can finally, finally, breathe again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, Ok, I know I promised no love triangle, and it isn't and it won't be, but this is an important detail I had to mention because it will appear in a few chapters, so hold onto that thought.


	9. Chapter 9 - Million Reasons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Just wanted to say thank you for all the love on this story, and I hope you enjoy this chapter and leave me your thoughts!

"I've got a hundred million reasons to walk away  
But, baby, I just need one good one to stay"

\- Million Reasons by Lady Gaga 

************

April 2004

Robert is not his usual self.

He paces nervously back and forth in front of her bed, fidgeting, at loss of word.

Her boyfriend always knows what to say and when to say it, knows how to make her laugh and how to push just at the right spot in a manner that will make her hit him playfully on the arm, but won’t turn into a full blown fight. He is easy going and sometimes even a little bit reckless, but he is none of these today, and he seems so different from the boy who sneaked her into the music hall in order to tell her he loves her just a few weeks ago.

“Hey... “ She whispers softly. “What happened?” Andy moves the bedcovers off her body and stands on the floor, still a little cold, her feet bare. She takes his hand in hers and laces their fingers together, before she brings it to her mouth to press a kiss to his knuckles. “Whatever it is, you can talk to me.”

She is standing close to him, close enough for her to have to look up in order to meet his eye. Her body is in his right in the middle of the path he has been walking back and forth, so he can’t walk across the small bedroom anymore.

“That is the problem, Andy. I don’t know how to tell you that.”

“Tell me what?” She tries to coax.

She can see the sunlight that starts to filter through the only window in her bedroom, signaling the start of another dawn, which in turn, signs the beginning of a new day. Even though it is supposedly springtime already, and the sun is finally out more often than not these days, Andy is suddenly cold, a shiver going through her, so she grabs a blanket from the bed and wraps herself with it, pulling it tight around her shoulders.

“You look so cute when you wake up in the morning.” Robert laughs and dishevels her hair, obviously trying to keep his thoughts away from whatever it is that might be bothering him, trying to stop her from digging in it any further, asking questions he obviously hesitates to answer.

“You do it one more time and I swear I am not going to let you sleep over here ever again.” Andy huffs and brushes her fingers through her hair, although she doesn’t know why she even bothers with it anymore. He looks taken aback by that statement, even if he must know this is an empty threat she makes. She has every intention of keeping his nightly visits over at her house, so she can sleep soundly in his arms. “Relax. I will allow you to keep coming over, if you tell me what it is that is bothering you so much you tossed and turned all night and didn’t rest even for a minute. If you keep staying up all night like that, I might need to kick you out of my bed after all, because it means I can’t sleep either.”

“I am sorry.” He apologizes softly. Andy bushes her thumb against his cheek, asking him to look into her eyes.

He has spent quite a lot of his nights in her house the past month or so, but her father is completely oblivious to the little sleeping arrangement Andy and Robert have, of course.

Robert spends the night every other day or so, on nights her father is on duty at the station. To much of Robert’s dismay, that means he has to slip out of the house in some ungodly hour of the morning, just past dawn, even on the weekends when neither of them have to attend school, and all he wants is to sleep in and cuddle his girlfriend until noon or so.

But he can do no such thing, not when the both of them know exactly at what time Pruitt Herrera arrives home after a long shift, and what will happen if he finds his daughter in bed with her boyfriend, who Pruitt still doesn’t love, to say the least.

He sleeps in her bed, but they haven’t gone past heated kisses and wondering hands yet, hasn’t shed their clothes and lost themselves in one another. She is still worried, not quite ready, and he was raised to know better than to push or to ask for anything more than she is willing to offer.

“You will have to go soon.” Andy whispers. They both know it is true, both know that the brighter the morning becomes, the time they have together shortens, until he will have to disappear out of her house. They will see each other in school in a few hours, of course, but it isn’t the same, not when the intimacy of going to sleep together and waking up in each other’s arms is replaced by hundreds of crammed bodies and so many voices in the hallways they can barely hear themselves, let alone talk in soft, caring tones as they do in the moment.

“I hate it.” He snorts. “I wish we could sleep until we absolutely had to get out of bed.”

“Believe me when I say this is the best way possible for you to leave the house. If you stayed, my dad would physically drag you out the door by the ear, and I would have been grounded until I was thirty and wasn’t allowed to see you ever again.”

The silence that spreads across the room after she finishes her sentence is suddenly heavy, neither of them knows exactly what to say, and she has a feeling he is keeping something from her. He kisses her forehead, his lips skim lightly on her skin as his hands hold her head, his fingers tangled in her hair. “I have something I need to tell you, and I am not sure how.”

She climbs up the bed until her back hits the wall. She looks at him with anticipation, inviting him to join her without using that many words. He does just that, and when he finds a comfortable spot right next to her, she snuggles into his body, leaning her head against his chest and breathing him in.

“I don’t know if you noticed, but we never had a conversation about what I plan on doing after this school year ends.” Robert starts. His hands are in her hair again, and it seems to give him some kind of comfort, for a reason which is beyond her understanding. She will have to stand in the shower with a hair mask on for a long while to detangle the mess he is making, but she doesn’t care, not really.

“I noticed.” She breaths. “I just figured you don’t know yet, and it is more than alright to take some time to think things through. Whatever you want to do, whether it is going to work or traveling or taking some time off, I will support you. College doesn’t agree with everyone.”

“The thing is, I know what I want to do. I have known it with all my heart for the last two and a half years.”

She moves away from his body and gives him a questioning look, scrunching her eyebrow just so. “Are you about to say you are going to study in a university back on the east coast?” He shakes his head, then she throws another guess in the air “Are you going to study abroad?”

Robert sighs. “Please, let me finish.” She doesn’t move, just blinks, waiting for him to reveal whatever it is that he keeps bottled inside. “Are you not going to come close again?” He asks, and when she shakes her head and does nothing to close the distance suddenly opened between them, he looks genuinely hurt.

Well, this is not how she anticipated her morning to go.

“Wait, two and a half years… Does that have anything to do with your parents?”

He nods and swallows, doesn’t really find the words to keep on talking, even though he knows he needs to explain, needs to give reason to his actions, to the way his choice will undeniably break the hearts of the both of them. He owes her so much, more than she will ever know or will be able to understand, more than he will ever be able to give the girl he loves back. An explanation is something he is able to give to her right at the moment, and it is the very least he can do for her, though he knows she will not understand. She can’t understand, and he can’t hold it against her.

“I was so angry after they died. I was surrounded by this giant cloud, kept thinking about how unjust was what happened to them, about how unfair life is. They were doctors, they flew to at least a dozen conferences a year. All they wanted was to be able to save some money. They were at the wrong place, and at the wrong time. That is it, and that thought tortured me.”

Andy is distant, but she still places a reassuring hand on his shoulder when she notices his breathing shutters. He calms himself down as much as he possibly can, then he continues. “I might have smiled at you that day when I helped you get up from the dirty hallway floor, but I was still furious on the inside, burning with rage and so many other feelings I can’t really name, not even now. Before I met you, I was constantly angry at the world, and then I had this sense that I need to seek vengeance for them, that I have to do something. I just couldn’t keep sitting around as those murderers that took their lives are still walking freely somewhere in the world.”

“You are going to enlist.” Andy whispers as she suddenly realizes what he wanted to say, when all the while he was beating around the bush, her voice breaks in the middle of the last word.

He tries to reach his hand and touch her, tries to hold onto her in one way or another, but she pulls back before he has an opportunity to make the contact. “Say it.” She demands, but her voice is small and filled with tears still unshed, and it comes out as a sad whimper rather than anything else.

“I am leaving everything I know to go and enlist.” Robert says the words, like she asked him to, but somehow it hurts even worse, like someone stabbed a knife in her chest and now is twisting it over and over again. “I have to go out there, Andy. I know you might not understand, you might not see it the way I do, but this is what I need to do.”

“Oh, I understand very well, believe me, even if you think I am some kind of a fool. You are going to leave me. You are going to leave me behind as you are going to go off to who knows where, doing who knows what, putting your life on the line every second of every day for years.”

“I don’t think you are a fool. I think you are brilliant, and amazing, and beautiful.” He tries to pull her closer, tries to comfort her in his embrace, but she moves further away now, jumping on her legs to a standing position.

“How long have you known?” She asks, finally gathering control over her trembling voice.

“I have known that I wanted to do it for years. I started the process of looking into it seriously a few months back, and got a positive result a few days ago.”

“A few months?” Andy snorts. “And all the while, you didn’t think of mentioning it even once, and you only let me fall further in love with you, knowing that you are going to leave me sooner or later?”

“I didn’t plan on any of this to happen, Andy!” He yells now, there is no remnant of the hush, soft voices they used just a few moments ago.

This is it. Their first fight, she realizes.

“I planned to come live with my aunt in Seattle for a year, then head out of here as soon as I possibly could, knowing this city has nothing to offer me. I didn’t plan on making any social connections, let alone have a girlfriend. I never planned on falling in love with you, but when you suggested I come have lunch with you and Ryan, I just couldn’t bring myself to turn you down. And then we kept inching closer to each other, and I couldn’t help my feelings.”

“When are you going?” Andy asks, ignoring completely everything he had just said.

“I don’t know yet. I am going to finish the school year, of course, but other than that....”

A few months. They only have a few months together, but right now she is so livid, so hurt by the way he kept something so huge from her, something that will change the curse of their lives, she can’t start to process how little time they actually have together.

It should be precious, every moment and every day spent together should be treated as a rare gift, as if it is the last time they are together, but Andy can’t see it like that. Not now, anyway.

“You should leave.” She orders and crosses her arms against her chest.

“I don’t want to leave things like this.”

“I can’t think, I can’t process the meaning of any of this while you are still around!” She yells. “And besides, my dad is going to be home soon, so I am begging you, Robert, please give me the breathing space I need. I need… I need a break, at least for now.”

Robert sighs, but does as she asked him to. It is funny, how he kept it away from her until he got an official answer, just so she won’t carry that weight around her shoulders. It is funny how everything came backlashing at him after all.

“If it gives you any comfort, I did everything with you in my mind. I tried not to hurt you.” He mumbles as he gets ready to leave, more to himself rather than to her.

“Well, that turned out just fantastic.” Andy bites

He makes his way to the door, and she slips back inside the covers. “Just give me a reason, Robert, please.” She begs. She has striped down the anger and the fury, and now all that is left in her voice and on her face are the hurt and the pain.

And he caused all of them. And he hates himself for that.

Nonetheless, it won’t change the decision he has already made.

When he looks confused, she continues. “I have a million reasons to push you away from me right now. You kept something so important from me, you let me fall in love with you, even though it was clear you will end things sooner rather than later, and break my heart in the process. You knew you were my first everything, and you let me feel deeply for you, imagine something for us, even though you knew what you wanted to do cannot include me. I have a million reasons to ask you to walk away, but I am asking you to give me one good enough reason to let you stay. Give me one reason to believe I am misinterpreting the entire thing, that I am overreacting.”

“You want this reason to be that I will stay for you, but I can’t, Andy. I have to go.” He whispers, then walks out the door, shutting the lights off in his wake, as he always does, more of a habit now rather than anything else.

She pulls the covers all the way up to her chin, and when she hears her father’s knock on the door, trying to wake her up to another day of school, she says she feels unwell, and surprisingly enough, he leaves her be and lets her spend the entire day in that exact same position in bed, her tears wetting her pillow, until her tear ducts are dry and she falls back asleep.

She hasn’t slept through the night, after all.

**********

Present, September 11th, 2019

“Oh, they definitely have matching tattoos.” Maya calls as she enters the beanery. She storms through the entire kitchen until she finds a seat on the table, of all places, and jumps onto it triumphantly.

“Bishop, you are aware that we eat on this table, right?” Jack inquires as he keeps stirring his famous Bolognese sauce he makes for dinner.

“I will clean it once we are done here.” Maya promises as she rolls her eyes, even though every firefighter present in the room knows she won’t do so. “Now, after Jack is done being a pain in the ass, can we go back to the subject at hand?”

“Guys, I really don’t think that we should meddle. Whatever is going on between the two of them, it is obviously painful and very much personal. So can we please stop talking about it?” Ben tries to be the voice of reason, but fails miserably as Dean, Travis and Vic drag their chairs closer to where Maya sits with her legs crossed, as if they are children waiting eagerly to hear a story told by someone who can actually read. “Fine.” Warren sighs, and pulls a chair too, joining his teammates.

“So, what do we know so far?” Vic asks.

“About him? Not very much. The guy barely talks.” Dean adds. “If Ripley didn’t tell us his name when he introduced him, I bet we wouldn’t know it up until now.”

There is a wave of laughter coming from everyone at the room at the half joke half truth, then Travis peaks at the door, makes sure neither one of the two people who are the subject of the very heated conversation are going to enter when they least expect them to. “Can you keep it down please? The last thing we want is for them to hear us talking about what may or may not have happened between the two of them.”

Their Captain and the newest addition to their team are nowhere to be found, as they have usually been in the last month or so. Andy locked herself in her office as soon as they arrived back to the station from yet another call, and Sullivan… Well, Sullivan is a mystery. They are able to see him at the gym or at the showers from time to time, but more often than not he just takes the chores no one wants to do and vanishes. He keeps his distance and his head down, they have learnt that quite early on during his presence in their firehouse, and yet, they can’t have neither of them barge in to the beanery as they are trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle.

“Oh, something happened. For sure. Did you see the way he looks at Andy when she doesn’t notice?” Maya says.

“Did you see the way she walks out of the room every time he enters?” Vic adds an observation of her own.

“Maybe he was her one night stand, and then when he arrived at the station it was awkward?” Travis comes up with a theory.

“No way.” Maya shakes her head, dismissing the idea. “You don’t call a man you hooked up with once ‘The one that got away’. You are the one to get away, as you walk of shame outside of his house before the crack of dawn.”

“That is true.” Vic agrees.

“And it has been a month.” Maya continues, even though she was interpreted. “If they were together for one night, things would have been awkward for two days, at most. You know, the ‘you are my co-worker and you saw me naked’ kind of embarrassment, that either disappears on its own, or when said coworker gets to see you naked once again. No, there is something more about it, I am willing to put my money on it.”

“I have a ten in my pocket!” Jack calls as he adds salt to the sauce, doesn’t want to step away from it, too concerned it will burn.

“Guys, focus!” Ben yells as they all scatter around and start making bets on the exact nature of the relationship between the two. Warren gets an annoyed glare from Travis, who tells him that he, once again, was too loud. “Even if we are going to play a game of detectives of station 19, and say we manage to figure it out, what are we going to do with the information? Are we going to lock them together in the turnout room and take away the key until they will kiss and make up?”

“Nope, definitely not that.” Jack protests from his place near the stove, and Maya snorts in reaction.

“Well, it just can’t keep being like this anymore. If he wants to be a lone wolf, that’s fine, as long as he doesn’t decide to act like that on calls. But we can’t keep walking on eggshells around Herrera, can’t keep up with the tension every time she walks in the room. She is our captain, and more importantly, she is our friend. She is one of us, a member of this family, dysfunctional as it may be, and to be able to help her, we need to know what exactly happened.” Vic explains.

“I can’t believe I am actually saying this, but I agree with Vic.” That comment earns Travis a punch on the arm, just from said person.

“Oh, you are all full of shit. We are here for the gossip, and you know it.” Maya shifts her balance, front to back, restless as excitement washes over her. “Let’s say what we know out loud, and then we can see what adds up.”

“Bishop knows most of it, so you should start.” Jack encourages.

“Well, let's see.” Maya takes a minute to think about the chain of events that happened in the last month or so, that ended in Andy slamming the door to her office after every call they have and with Sullivan not saying anything to either of them, other than the necessary pleasantries and inquiries about work.

“Has she ever talked about him? Mentioned him?” Dean asks, which has everyone shaking their heads saying no, they haven’t heard the name Robert Sullivan up until the moment Ripley introduced him to them.

“I have never heard of him up until the five alarm fire we had in the factory a month ago. It was her chance to impress Ripley, and it seemed like what her mind was set on doing, until she saw him. Then she froze, and I have never seen Andy acting like that, especially when someone of the higher ranks was around to see her in action. She always had her eyes on the goal, but when she saw him out there… That was when she called him the one that got away, and then she went sick for the next couple of days.” Maya explains what happened the first time she heard the name Robert Sullivan, or rather, read the name from the back of his turnout coat.

“Was she really out sick, or was she just pretending to be sick because she didn’t want to handle the aftermath of you and Gibson running an incident that was obviously supposed to be under her control?” Dean asks.

“Oh, she was really sick. She was on her knees throwing up as soon as we made it to the station. I know, because I was there to hold her hair.”

“Maybe she is pregnant and it’s his baby?” Ben comes up with a different theory. They should really keep out of their personal lives, he thinks, but it is stronger than him, so he just cooperates with the rather strange form of brainstorming that is currently taking part in the beanery.

“No way.” Jack dismisses the idea. “Andy is careful.”

“Maybe, she doesn’t mind having a kid, Gibson, but she just didn’t want your kid?” Vic suggests, which makes Jack blush, and the rest of them laugh.

“Fine, make fun of me all you want, but I am telling you, Andy wouldn’t have let a one night stand knock her up and leave her.” Jack shrugs, and goes back to his pasta.

“The weird thing is, he was part of station 88 when he was at that call. That is all the way across the city, and then suddenly, not a week later, he transfers to our station?” Maya shakes her head. “Things just don’t add up. After his first shift, Andy disappeared, said she was going over to her father’s house and stopped answering my calls.”

“Maybe captain Herrera knows something.” Ben says, then adds. “Well, we should call him senior captain Herrera, otherwise it is going to get confusing, now that his daughter is also captain Herrera.”

“Oh, I am sure he will be delighted by the new nickname.” Montgomery comments. “And haven’t you had one conversation with the man in your entire life, Warren? Of course he knows something, but I also know there is no way he will be willing to voluntarily give us the information. Now, Maya, you were saying about the matching tattoos?”

“Everyone knows the tattoo Andy has on the back of her leg, right? The one that seems really old and shaped like a planet?” The team nods, telling her that yes, all of them had a chance to see Andy wearing something more revealing than her uniform or her turnout gear, which exposed the tattoo. “Well, I asked her about it when we were still at the academy. The question has taken her by surprise, and she just said that this tattoo reminds her of something from the past, something that still pains her from time to time. When I asked her why she never got it removed, she lashed out at me, saying that I should keep out of her business. I never talked about it again.”

“But how do you know he has the same tattoo?” Vic asks, then her eyes widen when she comes to a realization. “Bishop, if he is someone she cares about, and you slept with him, she is never going to forgive you.” Vic whisper-shouts.

“What?” Maya asks. “No, no, no!” She denies the accusations. “Well, I mean, he is hot, but no. I don’t double dip, and I am pretty sure that sometime during her life, Herrera dipped.”

“He is hot.” Travis and Vic agree in unison, which earns them a look from all the other men in the beanery.

“I might have, maybe, accidentally, walked into the showers while he was there the other day, but I hadn’t seen anything other than the tattoo, I swear!” Maya calls, which makes Vic laugh uncontrollably, and earns her a suspicious glare from every man in the room, questioning if Bishop might have paid them a visit too while they were in the shower, and haven’t noticed.

“And are you sure it is the same tattoo?” Ben questions again.

“Yes!” Maya huffs, annoyed. “Not sure if it is supposed to be the same planet, but it's definitely a plant, and it definitely stands for something. It looks so similar, it can’t be a coincidence, and it is faded, on both of them, like an ink that was done years ago.”

“I…” Vic starts, but then they all go radio silent as Sullivan walks into the beanery. He grabs a bottle of water from the fridge, then slams it shut and goes through the cabinets, probably in an attempt to find something to eat.

He wears a loose fitting, light grey top, and training shorts, and by the way he is covered with a thin sheen of sweat, it is easy for everyone present in the room to realize he had quite the workout. He is also tense, more uptight than he usually is, even if neither of them ever thought it was possible. His shoulders are pulled up and his head is hanging low, as if by keeping his gaze down and avoiding eye contact, they are not going to notice he has slipped into the beanery, and keep minding their own business.

“Nice tattoo you have there.” Maya calls. It is rude, and it is probably a mistake, just as much as poking at a sleeping bear is, but her curiosity takes the better part of her. When he doesn’t respond, she keeps pushing further. “It is funny, you know. I can swear captain Herrera has one exactly like that.”

“Not today, Bishop.” He mumbles through gritted teeth. He just wants to make it past today, and he was doing quite well up until he walked in the beanery. They hadn’t been out on many calls today, and when they were needed out on the field, he managed to stay away, to check civilians’ blood pressure and not talk to anyone more than what was absolutely necessary. But apparently he walked out of his workout and straight into an ambush.

“So, how do you and Andy know each other?”

“I said not today!” Robert yells, can’t help it. Maya knows she has crossed a line, pushed too far, when he slams the cabinet shut and turns around to look at her. She expects him to look angry, even furious. She outranks him, but nonetheless, that doesn’t mean she wants to get on his bad side. Instead of rage, all she can see in his eyes are hurt, and pain. So much pain.

Whatever memory her question provoked, it can’t be one that ended well for him.

“Hey!” Andy shouts as she enters the beanery. None of the firefighters in the room heard her approaching, not when they all have been glued to the way Maya and Sullivan are staring down at each other, like they are about to enter a ring and not leave it until one of them is bleeding. “Someone care to explain what is going on?” When no one answers the question, Andy snorts. “That’s what I thought. Sullivan, my office.”

“But…” He starts to protest, yet stops. It doesn’t have a point anyway. He is sure she remembers. 

“My office, now!” Andy repeats, and he is gone, pulling the door open and disappearing down the stairs.

“Someone fill me in. Now.” Andy is not yelling anymore. Her voice is low, and her eyes travel back and forth between all the firefighters under her command, who at least have the decency to look somewhat embarrassed, but Andy thinks it is the notion of getting caught in the midst of an action rather than anything else.

“I was just asking him about his tattoo.” Maya mutters, and Andy knows in a blink of an eye her roommate finally put two and two together. Well, it was just a matter of time before one of them would realize why she can’t stand to be around him.

She hasn’t been in the same room ever since his first shift at station 19, has kept her professional distance from him, as well as from everyone else who were her peers and her friends just over a month ago. She hasn’t been in the same room with him for a month, but when she will be done here, she will have to go down and face him, for the first time ever since she asked for an explanation of what he was doing in her firehouse, after she clearly asked him to stay away.

She has to face him today, of all days.

“I was expecting more from you.” Andy whispers, then speaks loudly for everyone else to hear. “My personal life is mine, and Sullivan’s is his. You have no business snooping around like that, and I swear that the next person I hear talking about it is going to be on toilet cleaning duty for so long the skin of their palms is going to peel off and their eyes are going to burn from detergent. Am I clear?”

“Yes, captain.” Everyone mutters in unison.

“Good. Now, the thing I actually came in here for, before you all decided to act like you are a bunch of mean girls in a high school, is to remind you all about the upcoming annual fundraiser ball the fire department holds for it’s benefactors next weekend. I hope you all are aware that we are going to be the station that raises the most substantial amount of money this year, so dress up accordingly and work on those flirting smiles of yours.”

She is already heading out the beanery, when she adds. “Please don’t hold today against him. And oh, Gibson, I think your Bolognese is burning.”

She can hear him muttering the word “Shit”, and then she disappears, running down the stairs until she stands in front of the closed door that leads to her office.

She is straightening her uniform and runs her fingers through her long ponytail, hanging low on her head. And suddenly she feels like that sixteen years old girl again, about to head to her very first date with the boy she likes, her belly full of butterflies and her head full of dreams. She is quick to shake that thought out of her head. She is not sixteen years old anymore, and those dreams have been broken a long time ago.

She opens the door barely to a crack, and watches him, making sure to stay as still and as quiet as possible.

He was in her life for nothing more than a year, and when this date arrived back when the two of them were high school students, he shut her out. She wasn’t his girlfriend at the time, was barely a friend, so she didn’t push. He didn’t arrive at school that day, and when she saw him on the following, he didn’t mention it, so neither did she.

But every time September 11th rolled by in those long fifteen years they had spent apart, she always thought of him, always thought of his parents, who she never got to meet.

He sits with his back to her. His elbows are propped against his knees, and his hands are supporting the weight of his head, as if it is too heavy for his spine to carry all on its own. He looks exhausted, and warned out, and if there is a giant ball of tension sitting right between his shoulder blades.

The urge to touch, to offer some kind of solace is painful. Maybe today is the day her walls will fall down and her guards will lower, after she had to use every ounce of her willpower in the last month just to keep them constantly high, constantly buffering between the two of them.

“I didn’t do anything.” Robert sighs. Of course he knows she is there. It is these kinds of instincts that kept him climbing up the ladder of commend in the military, probably.

“I know. I... I am sorry.” Andy apologizes, even though she wasn’t the one to harm him in any way. Maybe she just feels the need to apologize for the way life has been so cruel to him, taking away his parents at such a young age. Taking away his wife, too.

She has wondered quite a lot about her in the last month. Claire. She tried not to let her mind wander in that direction with all her might, but when she was lying awake in bed and had nothing else to keep her occupied, the thoughts about her kept coming back, torturing her. What did she do better than Andy, that caused the man she loved to stay in the middle of a warzone, rather than to turn back to Andy’s warm and safe embrace?

She can’t think about it, not right now, and she obviously can’t ask him about it. She wonders if she will stay with her doubts regarding a woman who has been dead for a long few years now, forever.

“Can we not fight? Not today. Please. I am tired of fighting, Andy.” He whispers. She nods, and steps closer to where he sits, closing the door behind her. She stands close to him, the closest she has been ever since that first day he joined her team, and everything she felt was raw and heightened. It is the first time in a whole month she has been with him, alone together behind a closed door.

She doesn’t trust herself around him.

“Do you want to take the rest of the day off? We can manage without you.” She suggests, but does not force it down his throat, lets him make his own choice.

He doesn’t answer her question, so she knows he would like to stay. Andy has done her best to keep him away from the fire and the action today, letting him handle the small tasks he could do all on his own while they were on calls. She guesses she will just have to stick to that for the rest of the shift.

“Can I ask you something?” Andy inquires. Robert nods, and she continues. “Why didn’t you get it removed?”

“Because it reminded me everyday of the happiest year of my life, and that somewhere, far away past the stars, there is that woman who made me that happy.”

His answer is honest, and she is taken aback by it, didn’t expect something so simple and true. And it hurts. He can’t say words like that, words that pains her like arrows shot straight to her chest, not when he was the one who chose to stay away, while she waited for him.

“Why didn’t you remove yours?”

“Because I waited for you to come back.” Andy pulls at her shoulders. “And a part of me always thought that you expected to see the girl you left behind. I guess the tattoo is the only part of her still left.” There is a heavy silence as neither of them knows how to react, and then she adds. “I remember you telling me you thought the pain might disappear completely after so many years.” She doesn’t have to continue, to ask the question, for him to realize what she wants to know.

It is the first conversation they are having in fifteen long years when they speak in soft, hushed voices, rather than yelling and screaming. And just talking to him like so, like they haven't parted, like life hasn’t beaten them around and brought them down, has a nice feeling spread inside her belly. Maybe she would have felt like that every day for the past fifteen years, if only he had chosen her instead of war and vengeance.

“It is still there, especially on days like today. But it is different, less sharp, more muffled kind of pain that I carry with me everywhere I go. I can’t remember the taste of my mom’s world famous chocolate chip cookies anymore. I can’t really recall the way my dad was furious every time I quit halfway through something, started it, but never finished, if you can believe I miss even something like this. But if I thought that I wanted them around then… I just wish they could have seen the man I have become. I wish I had a way to know that my decisions have made them proud.”

Then he cries.

There is one, fat tear rolling down his cheek, one that he doesn’t try to brush away or hide, and she can’t help it. She wraps her arms around him, and lets him lean his head against her middle. She is hugging him, and her heart is racing, and her mind is going wild while her mouth is dry and her body seems to be frozen.

“This day…”

“I know.” She whispers, as she holds him even tighter against her body.


	10. Chapter 10 - When I Was Your Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thank you for all your love, I hope you enjoy this story and this chapter, and leave me a review if you feel like doing so

"Now my baby's dancing  
But she's dancing with another man"

-When I Was Your Man by Bruno Mars

*******

March 2004

"Andy, where are you taking me?" Robert asks, his backpack slung over one of his shoulders.

"Do you trust me?" She replies with a question of her own, but doesn't look at him, just keeps walking, her eyes fixated on her target, wherever that might be.

"Well, if I didn't trust you I wouldn't let you drag me from school to the middle of nowhere." He answers. She walks quite fast, but it doesn't take a lot for him to catch up with her and walk right at her heel, his legs being quite longer than hers.

Andy pulls open the door to an old looking building and steps right in, making her way up the stairs.

"Is this where you have your hiding place? Did you seduce me all those long months so you could just murder me in this building and get rid of my body?" He teases as he climbs behind her, and if his eyes keep traveling back to her ass... Well, he is her boyfriend, and frankly, who can blame him?

She turns around suddenly, and digs her forefinger into his chest, then pushes it deeper. The sudden move makes his balance shift, and for a moment he has to hold on to the rail so he won't fall back and crack his head open.

"Not funny." Andy scolds, her mouth twisting into a pout he can't help but find rather charming, even though he knows she tries all her might to seem intimidating.

He reaches his hand out, on an instinct, and brushes his thumb on her brow, slowly making his way in the same direction, in a way he knows soothes her. He does it over and over again, until he can see her face relaxes into something expressionless and feels the weight of her head as she leans into the palm of his hand. "I am sorry."

"Come on." Andy opens her eyes suddenly, taking his hand in hers. "We are almost there."

"Exactly where are we going?" He tries again as he follows her, closely now, since their hands are linked and he doesn't really have any choice. She refuses to answer, just like she did in the last dozen times or so he asked, trying to get as much as a clue from her regarding their destination.

Andy pushes another door open, and he has to zip his jacket all the way up to his neck when he goes out again into the chilly March afternoon. It isn't windy, not really, and the sun is out for a change, even though the first thing Robert learned since he found himself in Seattle, is that the weather in this city is anything but predictable. It has its bite, sure, but he thinks to himself it could have been worse if she had chosen another day to spend out in the open.

"We are standing on a roof of a building." He states dumbly, checking his surroundings. It has a rail stretching across the entire edge, so there's no risk of falling over.

"I know. Now drop your bag in the corner and let's start." She coaxes, placing her own backpack in one of the far away corners and straightening herself, standing a little bit taller than before.

"Let's start what?" He asks as he does what she ordered. He had learned a long time ago that he would rather do first, then question later .

"Your very first dancing lesson, of course." Andy looks at him as if he had missed the memo.

"Oh, I don't think it's a good idea." Robert tries to object, but even though they have been dating for only a couple of months now, he knows that when Andy has her mind set on something, there is nothing and no one who will be able to change her mind.

"Come here." She reaches her hand out for him to take, and all he can do is sigh and take her offer. "Place your left hand on my back." She instructs.

He knows what she means, knows where his hands should be positioned, but he can't help himself, has to fool around a bit if they are going to do things her way. His hand slips down low, lower than she intended, and he gives a squeeze to her ass, then pulls her closer to his body. His breath tickles her neck as his mouth makes a trail of wet kisses there.

Andy chuckles, but then manages to push him away. "Last time I checked, that was my butt, not my back."

"Well, maybe I need you to give me a class about female anatomy before you give me one regarding salsa dancing." Robert winks. He hopes she doesn't take it the wrong way, hopes she doesn't see it as an attempt to push her to do something she has told him time and again she is not ready to do.

Andy smiles, and takes the hand he has on her body, placing it in the right spot and distancing herself away from him just enough. "This is my back. Anatomy lesson completed."

"How did I score in the test?" Robert teases, even though he keeps his hand in its totally innocent place now.

"D for the effort. I hope you will do better in dancing, really." She tilts her head just so, and he presses a quick peck to her lips, can't help himself.

"Terrible kisser." He mouths.

"The most important rule is to never look down, never stare at your feet. Always keep your eyes on mine. Dance from your body, not from your mind."

"What does that even mean?" Robert asks.

"You will see. Now, next on the list is you being the lead. Fake it till you make it, or so to speak, even if I have more experience then you, you are the one leading us both."

"There is no way I am going to make it." Robert shakes his head, trying to convince her to cut him some slack. "Can we just go to the diner instead? I will even tell you if your face will be covered in strawberry milkshake this time."

"Sure." Andy agrees, but by the mischievous grin she sends his way, Robert knows she is not done yet. "I will just have to find a different dance partner. You know, salsa is a very sensual dance, it includes a lot of moving against one another..."

"Okay, okay, I got the mental image, there is no need to continue. Besides, if this includes you moving your body against mine, I am not complaining." Robert bites his lower lip, exactly as Andy decides that comment justifies a playful hit on his arm.

"Keep dreaming." Andy bites, then positions herself on the tiptoes of her Converse. They are barely the heels she is used to dancing in, but they will do for the first couple of impromptu lessons she is going to give him.

"Oh, I will." He teases back.

They could keep the back and forth banter for hours on end, she knows that much, but she also knows it will probably end up with her lips on his and his hands traveling up and down her belly beneath her shirt, and she can't let it happen, can't let him distract her just so. "I am going to teach you the first and most basic step of salsa. You are going to start with both of your feet together, then bring your left foot to the front." He does just as she says, then holds to position quite awkwardly, waiting for her to keep instructing her further. "Now, bring your right foot up, place it in the exact same place, then bring your left foot back to where you started."

It takes him a few tries, but he gets the move quite easily. "See? You are a natural." Andy smiles at him. "Just keep those eyes on me. The next step is practically the same, just take your right foot back instead." She demonstrates, even though it is not the direction she is used to.

He does as she orders, then asks. "Like that?"

"Perfect." Andy nods. They practice the very basic step a few times over, starting slowly, then picking up the pace as she joins along. "Keep your hands completely steady. Remember that you are the frame." She makes a note as she watches him dance. It starts off feeling a little strange at first, something a little bit unnatural in the way his body moves just so, but as he keeps doing the same move over and over again, he feels quite good with it after a short while, even though he can't really call one simple move dancing.

Andy walks away at some point, making a little circle around him and checking every single part of his body with the criticizing eyes of someone who has been doing this for years on end, making comments like "Don't make the step forward so big." as she goes.

When she reaches his back, she wraps her arms around his middle, resting her head against his shoulder blades. He keeps moving even as she is attached to him, so she moves along, feeling his hips sway from side to side as he shifts his weight between his legs.

"You know, you being so close to me really takes my attention away from the lesson. I would hate to get a D in this class too." She can hear the laughter in his voice as he teases her.

God, she loves him.

"Teacher's pet." Andy names him.

"For the right teacher." He flirts, sending a wink her way, telling her that the right teacher is indeed her.

"Next basic step is the side to side. It is similar to what we just did, just instead of front and back, you move left then right." Andy instructs. It takes him a couple more tries, but he gets it, and in a matter of minutes they add everything up to something that resembles a very basic dance routine.

He is not steady on his feet, not quite, as he loses his balance from time to time, almost falling on his ass and taking her down with him. But they make it, they dance on the roof with her on her tiptoes. He gets confused quite frequently, starting out at the wrong foot and sighs in despair, which makes her laugh and reassure him. "You're doing good. You will get an A on this one." Andy promises, as she feels the first drop of rain landing just on the top of her head.

They haven't noticed the way the sky changed, turning from somewhat clear to completely grey and cloudy, being so entangled with each other. But when another drop lands on her forehead this time, it is clear their class is over, and they will have to pick up where they left off next time they have a chance.

"Come on, let's find cover from the rain." Andy coaxes.

She is about to go ahead and grab her bag before she finds shelter back inside the building, but his grip on her hands doesn't lessen. "I didn't even get a chance to twirl you around." Robert pouts.

"Do it, and then let's go."

When he places their joint hands above her head and spins her around herself, she loses her balance, and slams right into his chest, knocking the air out of both of their lungs. The rain has picked up in a split second, and now it is way more than the drizzle it used to be a second ago.

So much for a nice day outdoors.

But neither of them cares, not when she picks her head up and looks deep into his eyes. His thumb brushes across her chin, then he holds her face up and lowers his head to place a kiss on her lips. They kiss and they kiss, only stopping when it is absolutely necessary to fill their lungs in oxygen again, and for him to mutter "You are a terrible kisser, I will teach you sometime." into her mouth, something he says and she knows is coming every single time they share a kiss, big or small, even though she has become an expert by this point, he never forgets her that very first kiss.

"You have watched too many romantic comedies." Andy mumbles between one kiss to another, teasing him.

"You were the one who suggested we dance on the roof." Robert reasons.

"True." She agrees, because it was her idea that brought them up to the roof in the first place, kissing each other in the rain, in a manner that appears to only happen in the movies, right before the director yells cut and someone shuts down the water sprinklers.

But it isn't a movie, it is her real life, and in the moment, she can't be happier.

"You are a hopeless romantic, Andy Herrera." He whispers.

"I am not so sure about that." She can't help but smile, now that their mouths are not too busy being locked together anymore. They have foreheads together, and his fingers are in her wet hair. "Now can we go? My dad picked an extra shift today, saying something about one of his coworkers being out sick, so we can head over to my house once the rain will slow down a little." 

"Wait..." Robert trails off, giving her an crooked look. "You are telling me that your dad is not at home, and yet you dragged me all the way up here?" He asks, then runs to grab both of their backpacks.

"If I had told you, we wouldn't be doing anything other than making out on the couch in the living room in front of a movie neither of us paid any attention to." Andy pulls her shoulders and takes her bag from him.

Robert says nothing at that, not trying to protest or defend himself, knowing she is once again right. He just opens the door back inside, and closes the rainy afternoon behind the two of them. 

********

Present Day

Andy applies another coat of her red lipstick, one that matches the short, red dress she decided to wear for the occasion.

It has been a while since the last time she has done this. It has been a while since she let herself just go out and dance, her mind loose and her spirit carefree, her body taking her to wherever she is destined to be in the night, in the arms of a man she has never met before, and will probably never meet again.

Life and work have taken their toll, had her hands full and her mind busy, and the thought of going out for a night and letting herself just enjoy for a few hours hasn't crossed her mind in the longest time now, like it isn't even a possibility anymore.

But after the last shift she had, she needs something that will keep her mind occupied and her thoughts from straying, otherwise she truly believes it could explode. She needs to sweat, and to use every muscle in her body, and to move to the rhythm of someone else.

It didn't take her long to find a salsa club she wanted to visit, and even though she is going all on her own tonight, she knows it will take her no time at all to have herself a dancing partner or three, if she remembers anything from her roaring twenties, from the new version of herself she tried to invent while she was in college. Of course, just shy of twenty one years old her salsa nights would turn into hangover mornings, which at thirty two, she would very much like to avoid.

Andy gives herself another once over in the mirror, making sure her teeth are stain free, before she grabs her clutch and heads to the door.

She tries to sneak out, tries to disappear before Maya sees her and starts asking questions Andy very much would like to avoid, but unfortunately, she isn't that lucky.

"You look... Wow." Andy grits her teeth together and turns around slowly in the direction of her roommate, who gives her an impressed once over with her eyes, scanning her from head to toe. If it wasn't Maya, Andy would have probably felt naked and small under the examining eyes, and would have probably said something to put her in place. But it is Maya, her best friend, and they practically live in each other's showers by now, so Andy can't say that she cares.

"I am telling you, if I didn't know you are not interested in women, I would have totally tried to hit on you. But it is your loss, I guess." Maya shrugs, and takes another bite of the sandwich she holds in her hand. Unlike Andy, Maya is dressed for bed, wearing her sleeping shorts and a face free of any makeup. "Hot date tonight?" Maya asks, her mouth still full as she chews.

"Maya, you are disgusting." Andy complains. "And no, I am not going on a date."

"Too bad, it is a really great date outfit." Maya notes, even though Andy doesn't really agree. It is revealing, even a bit on the provocative side, and Andy thinks that if she showed up wearing this to a date, the man at the other side of the table would probably get the completely wrong impression.

"About what happened on the last shift... " Maya starts, but Andy stops her before she has a chance to complete the sentence.

"Look, yesterday was just overwhelming. I know all of you want to know, but neither of us wants to tell that story. It is a wound, one that both of us carry, and I can only speak to myself when I say that it has bled enough through the course of the last month. So please, please, don't try and make it bleed even more."

"Okay." Maya nods. "Have fun, and try not to be too loud and wake me up if you do happen to come home with a man." The blonde winks.

"I will keep that in mind." Andy smiles, even though she plans on arriving back to their apartment without any company, and closes the door behind her with a soft knock.

She is restless as she makes her way out of the building she lives in. The elevator takes forever to make its journey up to her floor, but taking the stairs is not really an option, not in the three and a half inch heels she wears. Andy thumps her foot down nervously on the floor, until she finally, finally makes it down to ground level.

She yanks the front door of the building open, and steps out to the September night air. It isn't as hot and humid anymore, has a little bite to it, but it is nothing that will make her regret the fact she left the house wearing a dress that leaves quite a lot of her skin bare.

Then she bumps into someone, head first. He is taller than her, significantly so, and even though it can be right about anyone in the world, something deep inside her knows it is him.

Great, just her luck. The man who she planned to do everything in her power to forget tonight appears on her doorstep just as she is about to leave.

"Andy." He whispers her name. It is something soft, nothing above a whisper.

As if her name is a secret, or a prayer.

Then his eyes are on her, and it seems like all the words he had to say suddenly disappeared off his tongue, and his breath was stolen away from his lungs. His eyes go over her, slowly. She moves under his gaze, shifts her weight from the ball of one foot to the other, but it isn't because he makes her feel uncomfortable under his stare.

No, he makes her feel like her entire body was suddenly ignited, and now it is on fire, his gaze burning on her skin everywhere it trails. He moves from her feet up to her long, bare legs, to the dress she knows hugs every curve of her body tightly. He lingers on her cleavage for a long while, and she can remember he was always fixated on her breasts. Then his eyes go up, travel from her collarbone to her neck, until his gaze meets her.

And there it is, there is the fire in his eyes. It is a rare thing, one that usually appears only for a second before it disappears again into something cold and distant, until Andy isn't sure it was ever even there at all. But tonight it is different, and the fire is there, burning with something she can name only as hunger. It doesn't vanish, and in the little impromptu staring competition they seem to be having while neither of them breaks the silence, his gaze burns her skin and makes heat rise on her cheeks.

Her body wants to tease him. Wants to make him long for her. But she can't do it, not when she knows that if he touches her, if she is going to do as much as let him get close to her enough to feel the heat radiating off his body, she is going to be burnt by the fire she sees in his eyes, and it might feel so good at the moment she is not going to care.

"You are beautiful." The compliment coming from him twists a knot inside of her belly.

"Robert, now is not a good time." Andy tries to brush him off. He should tell her whatever it is he had to tell her that was too important to wait for their next shift, and then he should turn around and get the hell away from her stoop.

"I noticed. Going on a hot date?"

"No." Andy shakes her head, even though she doesn't owe him any answer or explanation. "Even if I did, you moved on, I think I am entitled to do the same after fifteen long years, don't you think?"

"So we are back to snarky comments and short tempered conversations that turn into fights." He mutters under his breath, even though the both of them know she can hear him loud and clear, yet she decides to ignore that specific remark, for the best interest of the both of them.

"Did you just wait down here for me to leave? Because to be honest, these days I spend most of my evening drinking beer with Maya and eating ice cream in front of the TV." She spends a lot of her evening at Joe's, too, but she won't tell him as much, doesn't want him to start showing up where she drinks too, after he made himself comfortable at her station and at her house, apparently.

"No, I actually wondered how to get in. I knew you wouldn't open the door for me, and I had a feeling Bishop wouldn't do it either, not with the way she treated me last shift."

"Yeah, I am sorry about that. I had a conversation with everyone, trust me when I say they are not going to dig their noses up in that matter anymore. How did you even know where I lived?" Andy asks, her curiosity taking the better part of her.

"Luke." Robert looks sheepish, pinning his gaze into the ground. "But don't hold it against him, I went to his office and looked at his papers when he didn't notice. He doesn't know any of that, any of our history, doesn't even know we met before I transferred to 19."

"Yeah, I figured that much myself." She waits for him to lift his head up, then asks. "Are you going to tell me why you came to my house? Because frankly, I am too exhausted to try and guess the intention behind what you do, and I am late." She isn't really, knowing she can show up at any time in the next hour or so and still find plenty of available dance partners and have enough time to dance until her feet are sore and blistered, but she can't be in his presence twice in two days.

"Can we just agree on not fighting, like yesterday?" He tries.

"Yesterday was something else, Robert, you and I both know that much. You can't use the 'can we not fight' card, then keep raining me with bomb after bomb landing on my head."

"I just wanted to thank you for yesterday." He shrugs. "This day... It is hard, every year. I am glad I had someone who understands by my side, if it means anything to you."

"It does." Andy nods, letting him know she didn't suddenly turn into an icicle in the fifteen years they have spent apart. And it does matter to her, he matters to her, more than she would like to admit. She cares about him way more than she wants to care, even after he broke her heart, and she hates herself for it.

"So why can't everyday be like that?"

"Because you don't know what you want! You don't know what you want from yourself, or from me, and you make sure to tell me that every single time we have a conversation!" Andy yells. "Because you confuse me! Because I don't trust you anymore, Robert. I have waited for you for fifteen years, and you moved on, and didn't even bother to tell me that until I accidentally ran into you in a fire. Do you think I am just going to forgive you? Do you think it is that easy? Do you really think we can go back to be the high school students we once were?"

There are many more reasons she is not too keen to share with him as to why they can't find their way back to each other, why her mind won't let her get close to him, even if this is all her body and her soul desire. She knows that if she will let him back into her life, she will fall back in love with him in an instant, even though he is not the same eighteen years old who used to make her laugh so hard her tummy ached. She will fall in love with him all over again, or maybe she is still in love with him, she doesn't really know, but she knows that he, on his hand, will bring her nothing but heartache and tears, sooner or later.

If she is being honest with herself, she is lonely, even when Jack or Ryan keep the other side of her bed warm, even with all the family she knows has her back over at the station. She is still lonely when she goes to sleep and wakes up in the morning, but she is too afraid to let the only man she really wants fill that space for her.

So no, she is not going to let her body close to Robert Sullivan ever again.

"Tell me what you want, tell me how I can prove myself to you, and I will do just that." He tries.

"It is not that easy..." Andy breaths out, not yelling anymore. She shivers, then, as a breeze comes out of nowhere and hits the back of her neck, making her entire spine tremble.

"Here, take this." He notices she is cold immediately, and takes off the light jacket he wears, ready to wrap it around her shoulders.

Andy wonders how he still knows her so well, after all those years they spent apart, and only the short while they actually spent together.

"I don't think it is the best idea." Andy declines his offer. "Last time I wore one of your clothes, I ended up curling into a ball on my bed, crying."

"I am sorry for all the pain I caused you, I really am." He apologizes, and it sounds true and honest as the words pass his lips. "I never intended to hurt you."

"And yet, here we are." She bites. "Look, can we just agree to keep our professional distance from each other? I think that is the best solution for everyone involved. So no more showing up at my door." She walks away, turning around to signal him the conversation is over, her heels making a tapping sound on the pavement as she looks down, making sure her shoes won't get caught in the cracks.

"You are going dancing, aren't you?" He asks, and Andy turns around, can't help herself.

"I am." She can't lie. Not to him.

"Can I come with you? I am better than I was when you taught me for the first time, I promise you that."

"I really, really don't think that is a good idea." Andy refuses. "As I said, let's just keep our distance, okay?" She doesn't wait for an answer, and this time, he doesn't stop her on her track.

Even though a part of her wants to beg him to say something that would make her stay, anything that will make her trust him again, that will help her give her heart back to him, even though she knows that he still holds it in his hands, how shattered and broken it might be.

But he says nothing, and Andy arrives at the club not much later. She doesn't want to wake up hungover, yet still accepts every drink a guy sends her over the bar. She switches partners fast, going from one to the other in a spinning rhythm that doesn't allow her to catch their names or distinct their look from one another, all look the same, none of them being him.

She kicks back the drinks and she dances, until her feet can barely carry her and there is a trail of sweat trickling its way down her bare neck, and then she dances some more, until someone yells it is the final call.

She dances to forget him, but as the club closes and she heads back to the apartment she shares with Maya, she can't say she has succeeded, if she is honest with herself.


	11. Chapter 11- Love of My Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Thank you for coming back! I hope you enjoy this one, and leave a review if you feel like it :)

"Love of my life, can't you see?  
Bring it back, bring it back  
Don't take it away from me  
Because you don't know  
What it means to me"

Love of My Life by Queen

*********

May 2004

Andy fidgets.

She smooths over and over again the invisible wrinkles in her black dress, and tosses her hair over one shoulder, then over the other, searching for a way to look more mature than she actually is, even though she knows everyone who walks past her are well aware that she does not belong, even though tonight, none of them really cares.

Senior prom.

If she is honest with herself, she never thought she would find her way to her own senior prom, let alone a prom full of seniors who are two years older than her, some of them giving her a short, confused once over, the other never glancing her direction in the first place.

She is nervous, and he is late, and it is his prom, but what if he decided to not show up? What if he chose to stay home, because she knows him, and these kinds of overly crowded social events are just not his style, not unless he has to attend them.

They talked about his prom last month, when they were still together, when there wasn’t this knife constantly hanging above their heads, threatening to cut their time together short. She scolded him, told him that a senior prom is a once in a lifetime experience, and that he has to go, even though she doesn’t really believe it herself. He, on the other hand, refused to flinch, unless she was willing to go with him. She doesn’t belong among the older students, had told that to him time and time again, and that she was fine with him taking another girl, as long as he will be back in her bed by the end of the night, with her father probably being on call at the station.

Yet everything has changed ever since that early, gloomy morning he told her he is going to leave her behind, and that his mind and his future are set in a place far away from her, a place she doesn’t belong to.

She didn’t plan to arrive, especially as they haven’t spoken to each other over the last month, only sending longing glances each in the direction of the other across the long halls of Washington high, detecting each other over crowds and crowds of other faceless students, being the only two people to actually matter, causing themselves misery by staying away, yet unable to find their way back to each other over the cloud of resentment and anger that wrapped her, and the cloud of regret that hovered over him.

She didn’t plan to arrive, yet she had that black dress in her closet, just in case, and seriously, it would be such a shame if he didn’t even have a chance to see her wearing it. And other than that dress she does not plan on going to waste, she has some serious amends to make, because their time together is so short, and every minute is precious, and she is the one denying the both of them the one thing they really want.

Each other.

She practiced what she was going to say over and over again in her head, made a whole entire speech about how they are going to figure it out, about how they are going to make it, together, if he is willing to give her a second chance. But he is not showing up, and she is waiting for him in her black dress, never walking in, and she feels stupid.

“You came.” She hears a voice whisper into her ear, coming behind her, and a warm hand traveling lightly across her bare shoulder. It does something to her, hearing his voice after that long month she has spent in her bed all alone, longing for him to touch every piece of warm skin he can find, just like he does now.

It twists something in her belly, something painful she has never felt before, and it has been only one month, and they have been right in each other’s reach the entire time, one of them just had to take the first step toward the other. She wonders what it might feel like to be away from him for months on end, years even, as he completes his tours all the way on the other side of the world.

But today is not about reliving the past or dwelling upon the future. Today is about the here and now. Today is about them.

“I wouldn’t miss it.” Andy smiles, and turns around to meet his eyes. She doesn’t know how he got there, how he sneaked behind her when she didn’t notice, but she doesn’t care. He is here now, and that's all that matters. “It is your prom, after all.”

She is happy to see that he is alone, didn’t bring another girl with him, even though she reassured him it was alright by her, even though she is the one who initiated their separation, and they never really made any rule that states they weren’t allowed to see other people. He is alone, and that burden on her shoulders is lighter now, as some of its weight has been removed at the sight of him.

“Well, it isn’t really my prom. I doubt I will be voted prom king, since it has been almost a year, and yet no one in my class really knows much about me other than my name.”

“Well, maybe that’s because you spend all of your free time with a certain sophomore.” She teases. “I bet you could have been a great prom king, if only you took the time to actually know the students in this school, other than Ryan and I.”

“I wouldn’t trade even one minute I spent with you in order to hang out with any of them.”

“Stop being so romantic, or else I will find myself falling for you.” She warns, even though the both of them know they are way past falling at this point.

“Can’t help it.” He shrugs, and then, after a moment of silence, they both say in unison. “I am sorry.”

He looks down, and she can’t help but notice how handsome he is in the suit he is wearing. It does something for her, and suddenly there is no more pain at the sight of him, just pure attraction.

“I am sorry for hiding such a big and important decision from you. I was selfish, and stupid for keeping it away when I knew the longer I hold back, the more likely the truth will pain you. I never meant to hurt you, I just didn’t know how to tell you.” He confesses.

“I know.” Andy nods. “And I am sorry, too, for pushing you away, for spending so much time out of so little we have left together being angry, instead of seizing every moment to the fullest. And I know that you want to do this, have to do this, even though I don’t understand, and I don’t think I ever will.” She takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly. “But can we not talk about it? Just for tonight? We still have time to work things out, if you will have me back.”

She looks up to him, and when he smiles at her just so, she knows he won’t hold any of this against her. They won’t hold any of it against each other. “I will always have you back, as long as you want to come, as long as you want me around.” They stay like that for a moment, looking deep into each other’s eyes in something that cannot be described as anything but love, when he suggests. “You want to head in?”

“Not really.” She admits quite sheepishly. “Can we just stay out here, alone, where no one is going to stare?”

“Whatever you want.” He reassures.

They fall back into the conversation as if they haven’t spent the last month apart, as if not a day has passed by since he slipped out of her bed at the crack of dawn and disappeared into the chilly morning. They talk and talk, and he makes her laugh, and as she still has to pull him down to kiss him, even though she is wearing heels, he mutters she is a terrible kisser.

Some things never change.

All the while they can hear the music coming from the inside. It is probably loud, and they would have to yell if they wanted to hear each other over there. But it is more manageable where they stand, audible, but not quite as deafening, and they can just immerse themselves in the conversation, without having to shout over the voices of other people and the beat coming from the speakers, and yet have the music as their background, adding something to the already magical ambiance .

They shouldn’t waste even one additional moment being anywhere but together.

“Will I have this dance?” Robert asks quite formally when the music changes to something slower, reaching his hand out for her to take.

“This is not a danceable song by any means.” Andy declares, crossing her arms across her chest. “Seriously, who chose this song out of all the songs to ever exist?”

“Come on.” Robert is trying to persuade, giving her that half smirk he knows she can’t stay indifferent to.

“Fine.” She breathes out, but instead of taking the hand he offers, she wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him closer. “But just so you know, this is a song about a man begging for a woman who left him to come back to him. It’s not that optimistic.” She slides in one last snarky comment, as her legs start to move in his rhythm.

It is nothing like the few salsa dances she had time to teach him. It is something simpler, more casual, just the sway of two bodies to a beat, while not another soul watches.

Just two people in love, and in that moment, they are free.

“It is still titled ‘Love of My Life’. I will take it.”

It does something to her, the way he throws those words in the air so casually, like they were always there, just waiting to be voiced. He pulls her closer, their bodies pressed against each other now, her head on his chest as they move together, and she can hear his heartbeat under her ear.

She looks up when the song is over, reluctant to let him go, and then she realizes she really doesn’t have to.

They are the only two people in the world in the moment, and if they want to spend the rest of their lives pressed tightly against each other just so, there is no one around to judge them. Her fingers trail his nape lightly, and then she closes her eyes, waiting for the sensation on her lips to come, knowing he probably wants to kiss her as much as she wants to be kissed.

It’s long and slow, filled with tongue and heat and anticipation. It is full of regret too, for all the moments in the past months that were taken away from them, and all those days in their future they will spend apart.

And she knows.

“Robert.” She whispers his name into the kiss. He hums his reaction, and leans back down, his lips searching hers, waiting to connect again, never wanting to break contact in the first place. She pulls back a bit, wants to look at him as he hears her say those words.

She inhales sharply, feeling her lungs with air, then exhales.

It is funny, how she still needs to gather up courage, even though he is her boyfriend, and she trusts him more than she ever thought was possible to trust a man who is not her dad or her best friend. And she knows that he is the right one, has no doubt in any of it now, after all those long months that they have been waiting, that the notion was there, heaving the air between them, but never really brought up.

And it can’t be any other man but him tonight.

It is him.

“Can you please take me home?” She requests.

“Are you alright? Are you feeling unwell?” There is suddenly a look of worry on his face, and she thinks he might reach out his hand to her forehead and try to feel her temperature.

Andy shakes her head before she continues. “My dad is spending the night at the station.” She hopes he will understand her intentions just by saying that much, that she won’t have to put her most intimate wants and desires into words. He looks confused, disoriented by her request, though, and she sighs.

Boys. Sometimes you just have to spell out everything for them.

She takes his hand in hers and places them both on her heart, so he can feel it beating for him. “I want this. I want us. I want to go all the way.” She tries to find the words that won’t make her sound so blunt, but will help him understand the meaning.

“Are you sure?” He asks. “You shouldn’t do this for me. Ever. I am willing to wait as long as you need to, and I don’t want you to feel pressured into doing this, not by me and not by anyone else.” His free hand comes up to her face, brushing across her brow just the way he knows makes her relaxed and calm.

Andy closes her eyes, and lets herself just enjoy the simple contact of skin to skin. “I want this.” She reassures him, and lets the hand on her chest go. “I don’t want to wait any longer past tonight.”

His slips his hand into hers, lacing their fingers as he stands by her side, letting out a soft “Let’s get you home, then.”

**********

Present Day

Andy looks from above over the venue, where the ball is already in full swing, firefighters dressed in their best clothes already socializing with rich benefactors clad in nothing less but the latest and greatest designer collections. She can’t really hear anything over the meyhem of voices and champagne glasses clicking with each other and the music that plays above them, but she can only guess, by what she manages to see, that her teammates are already telling stories of heroism, regarding cases when they saved the day, over and over again, as she sees donors slipping their hands into their pockets and writing checks, hopefully destined for her station.

She spots Maya first, easily enough, because she saw her dress multiple times as the blonde wondered over and over again if this is really the best possible choice for her. It is blue and long, and stands out in the sea of natural colors everyone else seems to wear. She has one of her shoulders bare, the slick ponytail Andy put so much effort in falling over that shoulder, and Andy can see her flashing a smile, as more and more people gather around her, her face probably looking somewhat familiar to them in the room full of firefighters nobody has ever heard off.

Vic came by the house to give Maya and Andy a ride, but Andy preferred to stay behind, finding her own way to the event. After her roommate left, Andy kept fidgeting, kept checking herself in every reflective surface she managed to come across. She knows she looks good, looks nothing like the sweaty, grimy firefighter clad in her turnout coat she was just yesterday morning, right before the B shift came and took over.

At first glance, it seems as though she fits, but does she really? Sure, she is a dancer, wearing a dress and high heels is nothing unfamiliar for her, but usually her dress is tighter and the music is louder, and her body talks instead of her mouth. Usually, the bar serves shots of tequila she can down to calm her nerves, if she needs to, but tonight, that doesn’t really seem like the beverage they will be serving.

So here she finds herself, up above everyone else, watching as the people chat and move around the room in some kind of a weird rhythm, not really ready to find herself down there, brushing elbows with Seattle’s wealthiest and most influential.

She searches for him, searches for his tall form that stands up above everyone else. When Maya brought up the notion that Andy dressed up to impress him rather than the people who should open their wallets, Andy was quick to dismiss her. But now, as her eyes scan the room already filled with people, and she fails to find him, her heart drops to her stomach.

She is not sure what she wants to prove. He had seen her wearing a dress and high heels that day he lurked outside of her building, and he had seen her wearing a lot less than that, even if it was fifteen years ago, and her body looked quite different as she didn’t even went through puberty completely yet.

So why does she feel like she has to find him, like her eyes need to lock with his, and the fact that she is here to do something entirely different other than to tease a man under her command means nothing?

Andy takes a deep breath, and begins her descent downstairs. She is quite steady on her feet being no stranger to dancing on high heels, the stairs look like an easy enough task, but she still has to hold onto the rail as she descends, making her way down slowly, as she makes sure not to step in the wrong place even for a second.

The last thing she wants is to find herself sprawled on the floor, face down, and she is suddenly overly conscious. She can sense a few sets of eyes on her bare shoulders even before she makes it down completely.

Fortunately for her, the first man she sees as her feet hit the ground is a waiter, carrying around a tray packed with glasses of sparkling champagne in one hand. She takes one and smiles at him gratefully, as she lifts the drink to her lips and sips quickly, before anyone has a chance to talk to her.

They gather around her not long after, mostly men, as she suspected, in suits that look way too expensive for anyone who makes a living out of being a firefighter to ever afford. Unlike her roommate, she is a far cry from being the small-talk kind of person, but she loves her job, and when they start asking for funny anecdotes about her most unusual cases, she is happy to give it to them, slipping easily past her lips.

Then her eyes meet his across the room.

It starts with a little tingling sensation at the back of her neck, something that has her sending her hand back to her nape to try and ease. Then she turns her head around slowly, just adjusting the angle slightly, and her gaze locks on a particular spot, and she sees him.

And he is handsome, painfully so. His look does something to her, twists something in the pit of her stomach, makes her hot just by gazing at him, makes some blush raise on her cheeks, that has nothing to do with the makeup she put on earlier, as her mind is racing. She can’t really see the details, not when she stands so far away, but his body hovers high above everyone else. He wears a black suit that seems perfectly tailored to his size, and he fiddles with one of the buttons of his jacket.

And she didn’t expect it, didn’t expect him to have that kind of effect on her, didn’t see that sensation coming her way and punching her straight in the gut.

She is attracted to him, like a moth to a flame, drawn to him even though she knows he hurt her, and will do so again given the chance, even if he doesn’t intend to.

All they know how to do is hurt each other, it seems.

It is strange though, because a lifetime ago, they made each other oh so happy.

Maybe today, of all days, will be the day she will finally stop lying to herself, stop ignoring the way he makes her skin tingle with his penetrating gaze.

It takes everything she has in her to look away, to keep the conversation going, and now that she located him, she can’t let him go, her eyes keep bouncing back to him, as she nods at the sound of one thing or another, pretending to listen, pretending to care.

The little circle of men around Andy disperses at some point, but she doesn’t find herself alone, not even for one moment, before there is another glass of champagne reached in her direction, attached to none other than Jack, just as Andy realizes that her glass is already empty.

“Are you trying to get me drunk, Gibson?” Andy asks, but she takes the offer in his reached out hand anyway, nodding her head at him gratefully. “Because frankly, you should really put all of this.” She points out at him. “Into the ladies who actually have money to give to the department. I am not one of them.”

Jack chuckles. “What do you mean by this?” He questions, even though she is sure he understands.

“You know, the flirty smiles and the handsome look.” Andy takes a slow sip of her champagne, finishes her full glass, even though she knows she should really have had only a taste. But screw it, other than Jack, there is no one around to see her behavior, that doesn’t quite fit to the event. 

“Well, you look beautiful.” Jack says. His eyes pierces her skin, but she doesn’t feel it, doesn’t feel that same pull in the pit of her stomach, the one she feels toward the one man she tries to hate with all her might, but apparently, fails miserably doing so.

She fails at hating him, she fails at pushing him away as she can feel him creeping his way under her skin again.

Her eyes search for him. He stands in the exact same corner of the room, but now he is having a conversation with a few women, who stands too close to him, as far as Andy is concerned. She is not jealous, not by any means. He is flirting, exactly as Andy told everyone in her team to do.

And besides, he is not hers to envy for, hasn’t been hers for a period of time that feels like forever, and might as well be one.

“Thank you.” Andy whispers. It feels awkward for a moment, as Jack and her stare into each other, at loss of words.

Then the music changes into a familiar tune, and her heart skips a beat, her eyes growing wide.

She hasn’t listened to that song in fifteen years, avoiding it with everything she had. And now he is back here, and the memories flash over her. “Excuses me.” She tells Jack, quick to disappear, leaving him watching her stepping away, a confused look on his face as he is now holding her two empty champagne flutes.

Her legs are shaking as she makes her way towards him, finally, for the first time tonight. She walks slowly, trying to find her balance on her heels as her heart races and her lungs suddenly feel like they are made of lead, burdening inside of her chest.

When he looks up at her, she can see he remembers, can see his entire expression shift, his eyes filled with sadness at the memory.

It’s strange, really, how the best, most significant night they shared together, turns in the wake of fifteen long years to a distant memory, one that feels heavy on both of their shoulders.

“Ladies.” Andy acknowledges their presence in the moment. She needs him all to herself, wants them gone, but she can’t be rude, doesn’t want to ruin the hard work her firefighters put into raising the money she knows they need. “If you will excuse us.” Andy gives them a fake smile.

They look disappointed, as if one of them has hoped to take him home with her by the end of the night, but they don’t need to be told twice, especially when they feel like they are interrupting quite an intimate moment.

“Hey.” He whispers as they are finally, finally left alone. They are standing in the back corner of the room, one that is quite distant from everyone else, and Andy prays that no one can see how close they stand to each other, being still too busy trying to get people to donate money to their station.

“This song…” Andy whispers, looking him deep in the eye.

This song brings back everything she has ever felt toward the man who stands right in front of her, and she feels like someone has punched her right in the guts, and robbed all of the air out of her lungs.

“You are beautiful.” Robert mumbles, his eyes half hooded as he looks down to her.

She hasn’t dressed up to impress him, or that’s at least what she has been saying the entire evening, both to herself and to Maya, but she knows she looks good, has taken the extra mile to do so. Her dress is not as revealing as the one she wore the day she went dancing, is something more appropriate to the event, reaching just above her knee. It is white and sleeveless, and the skirt has a little volume, which emphasizes her waistline, or at least that’s what Andy likes to think. She has her hair up in a loose bun Maya helped her pin together, and that red lipstick she knows he likes.

His thumb finds her naked clavicle, and he brushes it softly, slowly, which makes goosebumps raise all over Andy’s skin.

“Robert.” She breaths his name out, like a prayer on her lips, letting him now that she is not taken aback by the fact that he touches her just so.

“Our song.” He smiles down at her, his soft touch still traveling on her exposed skin. They are almost pressed together, almost standing too close to be appropriate in a public space, wide open under anyone’s examining eyes.

“Our song.” She repeats, and nods, even though they have only danced once to the sound of this particular song, and she made a few snarky comments about this song at the time, if she recalls correctly, because no one can really dance to this song, and it was quite the poor choice, actually.

But it is still their song, nonetheless, because to the sound of that song she finally knew.

And it was this song that played that night fifteen years ago.

“Can I have this dance?” He asks, reaching his hand out in the small space between the two. His finger is not on her anymore, and she is suddenly cold, suddenly disappointed by the loss of contact.

“No one else is dancing.” Andy points out, even though her eyes stay locked on the man in front of her, doesn’t tear her gaze from him even for a second to look around.

“Since when Andy Herrera cares about what other people do?” Robert asks, his brow raised, defying. Andy wraps her hands around his neck, and he finds a grip on her waist, because even though she is still not the same girl she was fifteen years ago, she still doesn't give a damn about what other people do or think.

They don’t really dance, just sway to the rhythm of the song in their little corner, and suddenly they are the only two people in the giant hall, and suddenly they don’t have a care in the world. In the moment, the heartbreak and sorrow belong to the past, and all that seems to exist is the both of them in the here and now.

“Because you don’t know what it means to me.” He whispers the little piece of lyrics into her ear.

The words send shiver down her spine, and she closes her eyes, savoring the moment, isn’t sure as to what the next minute is going to bring, let alone tomorrow.

And her entire body is alive when he holds her like that. They move and they move to the rhythm of the song, neither of them sure if anyone in their team has managed to catch the intimate way in which they hold onto each other, and neither of them really cares.

Robert places a soft kiss on her forehead as the song comes to an end, and with it the haze the two of them were in suddenly disappears, and they land back in the harsh reality. His name is on her lips again, and she begs “Please don’t let me go.” Her hands come down from his neck slowly, and she brushes her lower lip with her thumb, as it buzzes with sensation, waiting to be kissed.

When she drops her hand back down, there is a little bit of red smudged on her finger, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing really matters, nothing but the way she waits for something to happn, anything.

Nothing but the way he looks at her, the exact same way he looked at her in a similar, yet different moment fifteen long years ago.

“I think I am going to head home.” He breaths, and she is suddenly disappointed, until she looks up and sees the way he glares at her.

It seems as if there is a fire burning him from the inside out, and then the fire takes over her, too, burning low in her stomach, filling her with desire.

It is an invitation, she understands. He doesn’t say it in so many words, but she knows. He invites her to follow him, invites her to see what else this night has to offer, if they spend the rest of it somewhere a bit more private. They can talk, or do something completely different with their mouths that doesn’t require any talking at all, or she can stay, and see him walking away from her once again.

He places a soft kiss to her cheek, then he pushes himself away from her and makes his way between the sea of people, nodding in acknowledgment to some as he passes them by. After he makes his way up the stairs, he turns around, knowing exactly where to find her, as she is standing frozen at the exact same spot where he left her.

She can’t really consider that notion, can she?

Her mind tells her this is a bad idea. He will hurt her, all he does is hurt and confuse her and make her want to pull all the hair out of her scalp with her two bare hands. And though her mind warns her, she can’t listen to it, not with the way her entire body still feels on fire everywhere he touched her, even after he is long gone.

Just one night, she tells herself as she realizes her body already came to a decision. Just one night, going to his house, exploring what might happen, how she might feel when he brushes his fingers across her collarbone again just so. Just one night, if he wants it, no strings attached.

Yet how can there be no strings attached between her and the man who was her first time, the same man she used to believe was the greatest love of her life? The strings are there, Andy knows there are strings between them, invisible yet oh so powerful, and those strings keep pulling her toward that man, no matter how much she tries to cut herself loose, how much she tries to resist their pull.

And maybe tonight, just for one night, she is going to silence those voices in her head warning her from the man her body wants so badly, and just let herself enjoy, just let herself be.

Only if for a night.

Her legs carry her before she has another chance to rethink the decision she already made. She locates Maya easily, then wraps her hand around the blonde’s wrist, pulling her closer to her so they will be able to hear each other, talking in nothing but whispers. “I am going to head home. I am feeling unwell. I think I am coming down with the flu or something” Andy lies.

She isn’t a fan of hiding things from Maya. Maya knew about Jack, and about Ryan, and about pretty much everything else that has been going on in her life ever since the two met at the academy. But this little bluff is necessary, as Andy still has her doubts, still isn’t sure as to what is going to happen, or if she is even going to make it there at all.

“The Flu?” Maya question, her gaze traveling up to the entrance. Robert is long gone, but apparently Maya saw something, because she gives Andy one of her knowing smiles. “Well, in that case, I will see you back at the house.”

Andy doesn’t take the time to even comprehend the meaning of any of it, of Maya knowing, of anyone else who might have noticed the way Robert looked at her right before he disappeared. She just lets her legs carry her outside, out of the venue and into a peaceful corner in the dark night, not once looking back at what she left behind.

She knows the address to his house, has access to her firefighter’s personal information, much like going through Ripley’s belongings got him the address to her apartment. She wrote it down in her phone, just in case it was ever needed. Her fingers hover over the screen, and when she presses the Lyft app, she inserts his address in the destination line.

It doesn’t take long for her ride to arrive, and as she opens the door, she takes a deep breath in, then out, and makes her way into the unknown.


	12. Chapter 12 - Total Eclipse of the Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: Hey everyone! Thanks for coming back! This part is rated M for smut. I have a question for you that I will really appreciate you answering in the comments, if that's something you feel like doing, and I will leave it at the end of the chapter.   
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy and leave me your thoughts.

“ ... and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you didn’t even have a name for.”

-Richard Siken

******

Present Day

Andy fidgets.

She pressed the doorbell, let her presence outside his house known, but he takes his sweet, sweet time, which in turn, makes her feel anxious, makes her doubt her decision to come over, to explore what might happen in this night that feels somewhat outside of the present, in its own universe, disconnected from space and time.

As if the mistakes she is going to make today won’t count in tomorrow’s toll.

She is about to leave when he opens the door, about to hide in the street corner and order another ride, this time straight to the apartment she shares with Maya, back into the familiar and to the known. His timing is perfect though, a little bit too perfect, even, because she can feel him standing behind her just as she turns her back, now facing the street.

Her entire body is buzzing when she hears the door swing open.

“Leaving so soon?” Robert asks, and she can hear dry amusement in his voice, as if he is daring her to stay.

“I started believing you decided to invite me over, just so you could leave me hanging outside.” She bites as she turns around.

She knows it is the furthest thing from the truth when their eyes meet.

She can see everything in them, in the way they flicker across her face down to the red lipstick she still has on. He looks hungry all of a sudden, like his body is filled of lust, and the only thought he can keep in his mind at the moment is the way he is going to kiss the entire thing off.

“I didn’t invite you.” He claims.

It is true, he never voiced his wish for her to join him, and for a moment a breath gets caught in her throat as she realizes he might not want her to be there at all. She might have read too deep into whatever it is they shared at the ball, and she has screwed everything up, embarrassing herself in the process. But then a sly grin appears on his face, and all her insecurities wash away like waves that shatter on the shore, leaving only the butterflies in her stomach as she finally sees, really sees him for the first time since she arrived.

He is still in his suit, didn’t have the time to change out of it, as she was quite quick to follow him when he made his way home. However, the tie is gone, and so does the jacket. The first few buttons of his white shirt are now popped open, and Andy never thought it was quite possible, but he looks even more handsome at the moment than he did at the beginning of the night, as he appears laid back and comfortable in the privacy of his own house, away from any strangers and teammates who doesn’t really consider him a part of the group.

“I knew you would be coming, though.” Robert teases as he pulls a bottle of tequila from behind his back, in the hand that doesn’t hold the door open. Andy reads the label quickly. It is expensive, imported straight from Mexico.

He holds onto the good stuff now, she guesses.

“You knew I would be coming over because you invited me.” Andy insists. He finally opens the door all the way for her, lets her in. The night’s air is just pleasant, but that doesn’t mean Andy wants to keep their back and forth on his stoop, so she is grateful when he moves out of her way, ,and lets her into his house, the only place in this world where he can find a little bit of privacy, a little bit of peace.

They tease each other, she realizes, even flirt, if she dares to call it that way. And it is comfortable ,and easy, and natural, and she spent so much time in the past month being angry at him, yelling from the top of her lungs, when she wasn’t avoiding him as if he has got the plague all together, that it never crossed her mind things between them can go back to the way they used to be fifteen years ago, if she just let go of the anger that kept bubbling inside of her.

Only if for a night.

She takes a quick look around his living room, doesn’t want it to seem as if she intends to pry, as if she plans to invest herself in his personal life. And yet, the house he lives in can say a lot about the man he has become in the fifteen year they have spent apart, and she wants to learn, wants to know how he changed, what she missed.

The house is so minimalistic, some may say it is even bare, stands completely naked other than the few necessary furniture. There are no pictures and no mementos, and yet it seems flawlessly designed. The natural colors and the lack of any decorations screams the fact that a single man lives in this house, all alone, masculine and closed off and practical, even cold at times.

Andy takes her shoes off by the entrance, unstrapping her sandals and placing them neatly by the door, like two golden soldiers, standing perfectly aligned. The relief is instant, and she can feel her feet pulsing as she twists her ankles around, trying to alleviate the pain caused by spending an entire night in high heels, the same ache she always feels after she comes back home from a long night of dancing, tired but satisfied.

“Sure, make yourself at home.” Robert stings as he reappears in the living room. He has two glasses in his hand, one for each of them, filled with the amber colored liquor.

“And here I thought we were going to drink straight out of the bottle.” She teases back, then takes the glass he offers with a smirk. “You don’t get to tease me about wanting to get rid of those shoes. You try to walk in them for as little as ten minutes, and then you will be allowed to talk.”

“You seem quite experienced in those high heels.” Robert notes. He takes a swig from his glass, emptying the entire thing all at once, and waits for her to say something.

It is unnerving how well she can read him after fifteen years, when there is anything else on his face other than that blank expression he seems so fond of carrying around the station. She knows what he really wants to ask, which detail he missed during the last fifteen years he craves to learn, to know about. What will make him feel a little bit closer to her, for them to feel a little bit closer to the kids they used to be.

“I stopped dancing after you left. I took quite a long break, couldn’t get myself to do the one activity that felt so much like it belonged to us. It was so intimate, I just couldn’t bring myself to wear those heels and that dress and to go back there, pretending like nothing ever happened, like you never existed. Then in college… College is a blur, really. I got back to dancing, but it was different. I drank too much and party too hard and changed partners too fast, both dance partners and partners of the other kind.”

“Oh.” He whispers, almost inaudible, before she continues. Andy thinks she can see blame crossing his face, barely there, disappearing in a blink of an eye, but it exists nonetheless, heavy and present, pressing down on his shoulders.

“The first time I actually felt like myself since you left was right after college, when I joined the fire academy. Things finally started to find their right pace again, as if I found a piece of the puzzle I didn’t know was missing the day I walked through those gates for the first time. I kept dancing as much as I could, a little less wildly than in my college days. But life got in the way, and I was promoted to be a captain, and a certain ghost from my past has suddenly reappeared in my life, so before you saw me that day, it has been a while since I went dancing.”

“I said I didn’t want you to change anything in your life just because I wasn’t there to be a part of your experiences anymore.” He recalls the conversation they had the night before he left, when they talked in hushed voices and cried themselves to sleep, wetting each other’s naked skin as their bodies met over and over again.

“Well, you said a lot of things that night that didn’t come true.” Andy shakes her head, trying to rid herself off that annoying feeling of resentment that starts to creep its way back under her skin. ”I am sorry.” She apologies.

Tonight can lead them a million different ways, but the only way she doesn’t want to spend it is being angry. If she wanted to still hold onto her grudge, she could have gone straight home.

“It’s alright.” He shrugs. He is done with his drink, but Andy didn’t have even a sip of hers. She downs the entire thing in one, large gulp, just like he did, hoping it will take the edge off a little bit, ease the tension that seemed to settle around them all of a sudden.

It burns its way through her throat and down to her stomach, where it settles, spreading instant warmth all over her body, head to toe. He reaches for her empty glass, slowly opening her grip with his fingers and releasing it from her hold. Her skin tingles everywhere he touches, even after he leaves, even after he makes his way back to the kitchen to refill their empty glasses.

She realizes they have been standing the entire time, so she makes her way to the large sofa, and sits there, crossing her legs one on top of the other.

Andy knows alcohol doesn’t affect the human body that quickly, but she feels relaxed, less held back when she asks, loud enough for him to hear. "Are you trying to get me drunk, Robert Sullivan?”

He says nothing until he makes his way back, and holds one of the glasses in her direction.

She decides against drinking it, shaking her head, and he places the glass he poured for her on the coffee table, yet still nurses the one that belongs to him between his palms.

Whatever is going to happen tonight, she wants to remember it, wants to feel everything, and two champagne flutes and a tequila shot in, her head is already spinning, so having seconds might not be the greatest idea.

“Last time you said that to me, we weren’t even old enough to drink.” He smiles as the memory of that night comes back in flashes to him, probably, much like it comes back to her.

And how can it not? Everything in this night feels like that night, fifteen years ago, and she can almost feel her, the sixteen years old girl, the mix of anticipation and a little bit of natural worry as her boyfriend guided her every step of the way.

As he made her feel safe in the most intimate moment she has ever shared with a man.

She has slept with him again and again after that night, and had been accompanied by her fair share of men who kept her bed warm, but that night will always be there, at the back of her mind, deep in her memory. The way she felt every single nerve in her body for the first time that night, the way he reassured her, the way they took their time, the way that night seemed to last forever, yet was so short at the same time.

“I am still surprised that my father didn’t figure out we stole some of his tequila.” Andy chuckles.

“Well, in our defense, we only drank the little bit that was absolutely necessary.” He is smiling now, too, and Andy tries to recall if she has seen that particular smile since he stormed back to her life, on every day other than today, but she fails. “And, if we are putting all the cards on the table here, we used to think we were so smart when we were kids. We obviously didn’t give the adults enough credit.”

“Yeah, I am pretty sure my father was aware you sneaked in and out of the house on days he was on shift, thinking back at it. I guess he just knew how much I loved you, he didn’t have the heart to tell me to stop.”

Loved.

Only then she understands she used the past tense of the word, as if she holds no remnant of that feeling in her heart any longer. And maybe there isn’t any of it left. Maybe all that is left between these two people, who would otherwise be almost complete strangers, only a captain and her firefighter, is the pure attraction of one lonely body to the other.

It seems as if she is not the only one who catches the meaning of that one, simple word. He suddenly tenses up in the seat right next to her, and in the moment, it seems as if they could have set a thousand miles away from each other, and it wouldn’t matter.

“I think I am going to head out.” Andy blurts. “It’s late.” She stands up quickly, before he has a chance to say or do something that will change her mind, something that will make her stay, something that will twist the knot in her belly anywhere further.

She is by the door, reaching down to pick up her shoes.

When she stands back up, she feels it.

His hand runs across the bare part of her upper back, everywhere he can touch. Her breath catches in her throat, and she can’t move, can’t think, can’t breathe as his touch raises goosebumps across her skin.

“Just say the word and I will stop, if that’s what you want. I am only going to proceed if that’s what you wish for.” He breaths. It is something low, suddenly seductive, so different from the conversation they just shared, which Andy realizes is now officially over.

The rational part of her mind screams at her to back away. She trusts him, knows he won’t try to do anything if he sees the tiniest sign from her signaling him that it isn’t something that she wants, something she desires. That rational part tells her to greet him goodnight and leave, but then something else takes over, something lustful and dark, the same thing that brought her to his house in the first place, and all it wants is for this man to keep his hands on her skin, and never let go.

“Don’t stop.” Andy breaths. She drops the shoes and closes her eyes, lets herself revel in the sensation of being touched by him, of his hands moving up and down her shoulders as he stands a little bit closer now.

She missed the way this man touched her for fifteen long years, after all.

“You are beautiful.” He whispers once again, just like he did when they were at the ballroom. It is different now, low and hoarse and raspy, filled with so much need and want. She tilts her head back, trying to find something to lean against, but he still stands too far.

His hand fiddles with the zipper of her dress.

No more games, then. No more pretending the two of them didn’t know this is how tonight is going to end, this is how they are going to end, their limbs tangled as they try to contain how much they want each other, sooner rather than later.

Good. She is sick of pretending, anyway.

“I am going to undo your dress now.” He announces, gives her room to change her mind, to back away if she wishes to do so. Andy nods eagerly, and then his hands make their journey down, tugging the zipper in a pace that can only be described as excruciatingly slow. She can feel it, his hand lowering inch by inch, and she curses herself for picking this particular dress, where the zipper goes all the way down from her shoulder blades to just above her rear.

When he is done, the dress drops to the floor, and as it lands, Andy can feel the soft fabric pool next to her bare ankles.

There is no going back.

“Andy…” He breathes out her name, his hands going back to the mission of exploring every single piece of skin on her back side. He has a lot more to work with, now that the dress is gone, and she is left standing in her strapless bra and underwear. His hands travel lower now, though still remaining only in areas that are considered safe, outlining the muscles on her back and the curve of her spine. “Turn around.” He requests.

She takes a deep breath, trying to calm her jittery nerves. He has been her first time, it’s not like she is hooking up with a stranger. He taught her everything she knows, had been nothing but caring and patient, and he made her feel so comfortable, made her feel safe. And she is not the same sixteen years old virgin, afraid of the unknown. She knows what she is walking toward, knows how good he can make her feel, how good sex can before both parties, if you experience it with the right partner.

She turns around, and her eyes widen when they catch his. His eyes are nothing but dark orbits, filled with lust and desire, and it does something to her, makes her feel hot and bothered, if nothing else.

It has been a while since a man looked at her just so.

She steps out of the dress, and when he walks forward slowly, she plays along, waking back to the rhythm he dictates, until her back hits the nearest wall. He leans his body weight against her, and for a moment they stand there, two warm bodies pressed tightly against one another, waiting for their partner to be the first one to give in.

His mouth finds hers, crashing into each other, as he shifts his body even further into hers. His lips are warm and taste like tequila and memories and broken dreams, his rough stubble tickling her skin as his tongue traces her lower lip, asking for more, requesting entrance, which she is more than happy to grant.

His tongue tangles with hers, fighting. It starts out as something slow and lingering, as they take their time to get reacquainted with each other. He is the one to pick up the pace, the one to bite and to brush her sides with his fingers as he kisses her relentlessly, like he tries to make up for those fifteen long years they spent apart, deprived of any kisses.

She is the one to slow him down, to place two hands on his chest and push him off a little bit. “You know, human beings usually need air to survive.” She chuckles.

“Sorry. “ He breathes out, his thumb coming up and brushing across his lower lip, now stained red from whatever is left from the lipstick she had on at the beginning of the evening.

“I feel like I should be the one to apologize." Andy admits, looking rather sheepish. “I got your face covered in red lipstick.”

“Believe me when I tell you it's the least of my concerns at the moment.”

Her thumb in the one to skim across his lower lip now, traveling from one end to the other. He catches her finger with his teeth, nibbling down on the pad lightly, then moves on to kiss her wrist, his lips barely touching her skin, soft and warm against her joint.

“Let’s take it slow.” Andy requests, and Robert nods.

“I would like that.” He is back to kissing her, now less needy after he got the first kiss out of the way, got something to tie him over, even though he will never be satiated by the way her lips move in complete unison with his. It is slow and tender, and has her sighing slightly into his open mouth. His hands are on the inner part of her thighs, and he has to break the kiss in order to lower himself down a little bit and gather a good leverage, before he picks her up, her feet leaving the ground as he hoists her entire weight as if she is nothing more than a bag of flour.

She wraps her legs around his middle, before she tilts her head to one side and asks. “Are you really going to carry me all the way to your bedroom like that? It seems uncomfortable, and I can walk, you know.”

He doesn’t respond to that, even when she insists that he can let her go, she is not going to turn her back and run away from him, not tonight. Halfway through, Andy’s lips find the crook of his neck, and she starts kissing pointedly, sucking every now and then. “You are making it impossibly hard for me to hold you still.” He mutters.

“Well, you have been the one to suggest carrying me in the first place. Turnabout is a far game after all.” She lets out just as they arrive at his bedroom. She expects him to throw her down to the mattress and climb on top of her, but instead, he just lowers her until her feet meet the ground again, her arms still warped around his neck.

His hand comes up to her face, and brushes a piece of hair that fell from her bun, tucking in behind her ear. She has to stand on her tiptoes to be the one kissing him, and even then, she only manages to get to his jawline. It doesn't stop her, as she trails wet kisses down his throat, careful not to leave any marks, any proof that this night ever happened at all.

Robert slows her down after a while, opening his eyes and places his hands on her biceps, telling her to stop. He changes their position, and now he is standing behind her again. He is pressed tightly against her body this time, and she can feel the bulge in his pants pressing against her back. Andy has to swallow, has to tame herself if she wants to take it slow, because if she takes action according to the thoughts that flow in her head at the moment, this is going to end all too fast.

He shifts her position a little bit, and then she can see her reflection in a big mirror that hangs on one of the walls. “We are not doing this.” She refuses, shakes her head vigorously.

“I want you to see yourself. I want to see us.”

“We are not doing that mirror thing, Robert.” Andy insists, even though she knows she is fighting a lost cause now.

“I recall you enjoying this immensely the last time we did it.” She can see him lowering his head in the reflection, placing a kiss to her cheek, then lowering his head down to suck at her pulse point.

“Last time…” Her words disappear off her tongue as he bites down on one particular point. “Last time I was a sixteen years old virgin, who needed you to guide her, to help her explore her own body. I am not the same girl today.”

“Oh, I know.” He reassures. “Can we just give it a try?” He asks.

He is doing anything in his power to recreate that night, it seems, and it pains Andy, because she didn’t come here for the magic and the love she felt that night, knows she is not going to find them here. No, she came to alleviate the ache between her thighs, to finally release all the tension that has been building between the two of them ever since she saw him in that five alarm fire. She came here to feel, and have her release, and doesn’t need or want him to treat her the same way he did fifteen years ago. She wants it rough, and sharp, and accompanied with just the right amount of pain.

“Only if I get to have my way around you this time.” Andy compromises.

“Fair enough.” He agrees.

Robert doesn’t have a chance to touch her yet, but suddenly her body is buzzing, filled with anticipation. “Keep your eyes open.” He instructs, even though she knows the rules to the particular game they are going to play. She has played it once before, after all.

His hands travel down her ribs, moving forward, traveling her stomach, then all the way back. He bites down on her earlobe, as his hands travel back, unhooking her bra and throwing it across the room.

Her nipples are two hard, dark peaks as soon as they come in contact with the air, even though it is quite warm in his bedroom. She looks at him pointedly through the mirror, waiting for him to do something, to touch the newly revealed skin. Instead, his hands move to her hair, pulling pin after pin out of her bun, taking his time with the project at hand.

“You can’t be serious.” She whines at the lack of contact, at the lack of any touch on his part. She said she wanted to take it slow, she didn’t mean she wanted him to torture her.

The sly grin she catches from his reflection, makes her angrier, makes her blood boil in her veins. She is impatient, until finally, finally, his hands release the last pin, and her hair falls on her shoulder in soft waves. His hands are in her hair immediately, wrapping a strand around his finger and twisting it lightly, then letting it go. “I had to.” He shrugs.

And here she thought she was about to get laid. Instead, she is being coddled, apparently.

Then he is back at the task at hand, as he pulls her even closer to him, even snugger. He avoids her exposed breast, and instead goes right down, trailing down her navel slowly. His hand is inside of her underwear, and even though she can’t see what his long fingers are up to, she can definitely feel it.

“Smooth.” He mutters as his fingers brush across the skin of her lower lips. She has to bite down, has to gather all of her self control in order not to tremble under his touch. “Open your eyes.” Robert orders, and only then she realizes she closed them at the first place, as she waits for him to do something, to touch her.

“I don’t think I can.” She breathes out, her eyes still shut tightly. His fingers stop their movement, staying completely still, and she can barely feel them against her skin now. He won’t continue until he gets things done his way, she realizes, and this is one detail she can’t seem to remember if he had while they were younger, or if this is a new trait he acquired somewhere in the span of the last fifteen long years.

She opens her eyes slowly, and he gives her a moment to adjust, watches her breast moving with every deep inhale and exhale she takes. His thumb brushes across her clit lightly, and she lets out an eager moan, which in return earns her a little thrust of his hips forward. She feels him now, probably completely hard and ready, and she manages to slip in a thought about taking care of that for him, before he moves his finger across her bundle of nerves again.

Then her mind goes dark, as if someone has shut it off completely, and she just lets herself feel, lets herself enjoy the sensation of being touched by this man, who seems to know exactly how to work her, even fifteen years later.

It ends before it even begins, before any trace of pleasure has a real chance to build in that specific spot low in her stomach. He takes his hand back, and Andy whimpers at the loss of any contact. When he touches her again, his hands are on her breasts, and she can see it this time.

She can see the way he watches her tentatively, the way the feeling of her body under his hands does something to him, too. She catches her own reflection, the way there is one droplet of sweat already tickling down her hairline, the way she looks needy, her face blushed. His hand starts its way from her collarbone down to her nipple, then he tugs, hard, hard enough to make her release a little high-pitched noise.

“You like that?” He asks, and when she nods, as if she had swallowed her tongue, he does it again, prolongs the action this time.

And there it is, the wetness that pools between her thighs and in her underwear, making her ready for him. She is a mess of muffled moans and thrusts into nothing, as she tries to find anything that will give her some kind of friction, some kind of relief. Not that she cares, even if she can see herself reflecting through that goddamn mirror he was so insistent they use.

She is long past the point of caring, of thinking.

Andy manages to release herself from his grip, turning her body back to him. She is almost naked, down to her underwear, yet he is completely dressed, and she has a feeling she has to remedy that if she wants to have her orgasm any time soon. Andy wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him into a kiss. It is hot and sloppy, the kind that linger, filled with lust. He is the one to pull back, then whispers, his eyes closed. “You are a…”

Andy’s hand flies to his mouth, quieting him before he has a chance to complete the sentence. “Please don’t say that.” She begs. “Today is not about that, and I want to keep the memories as they are. As they were”

She can see his expression change, and for the tenth time or so she thinks they came here for two completely different reasons, reads a different meaning to where they are now, as she stands with her bare breasts pressed against his chest. He thinks that means she forgave him, that she finally lets him in, and maybe they can find their way to being something, not like they used to be, but not entirely different either. She, on the other hand, came for the sex, for the heightened feelings, for the sound of flesh grinding against flesh.

And she feels sorry for him, because she has a feeling now that one of them is going to come out of this heartbroken, and by the height of the fortress she has built around her heart, it can’t possibly be her.

“Hey.” She brushes her thumb along his cheek in a manner that is supposed to be reassuring. “Can we just focus on the here and now?” He nods, and she starts to unbutton his shirt, sliding her palms against his skin.

She has to swallow as his chest becomes bare, and she can finally see more of him. She remembers he worked out, remembers the shape of his body was nothing to scoff about, but this… This is different. Every single muscle in his chest and his abdomen is defined, as if someone hand sketched it. She runs her finger on them, drawing lines between and across them.

“My turn.” She whispers as she walks behind him. She won't be able to see herself in the mirror, being quite shorter than him, but with what she has in mind, she is not going to linger behind him much anyway. She moves her fingers now, trailing his back until she sees a spot on his shoulder blade. It is a scar, one that seems like it never healed properly. One might say it is ugly, like it doesn’t belong on this beautiful body, but it is part of him, she realizes.

This scar is part of the story of the fifteen years he has spent without her.

Her hand reaches out on an instinct to touch it, her fingers brushing lightly across the skin.

Next thing she knows, she is pressed against the wall, her head hurts a little by the impact.

She hated him, has been angry with him, has been sad and disappointed and even indifferent. But at the moment, when her eyes catch his as he pins her hands above her head against the wall, it is the first time she is actually afraid of the man he has become.

What has he been through?

“Is this from the time you jumped in front of a bullet for Ripley?” Andy asks, can’t help her curiosity.”

“I thought we were focusing on the here and now?” He raises a brow, using her own words as a way to avoid answering a question that probably involves a demon from his past he doesn’t want to wake up.

“Fair enough.” She nods. Her hands are down to his belt, opening it blindly and tossing it away. She reaches for his pants, taking care of the button and the zipper, lets him shimmy out of them.

And now they are even, both stripped down to their underwear.

That’s much better.

She pushes him back, until the back of his legs hit the bed. She pushes him once again, and he is on his back, lying with his limbs sprawled all over. She is the one to reach in his underwear this time, letting his erection free. She licks her lips, her tongue traveling across her lower lip as she sees him, and then she can feel him chuckle under her.

“What?” She asks, trying to figure out why he suddenly finds the situation they are in so amusing.

“Nothing.” He shakes his head, then sighs.. “It was just so different from your reaction the night you first saw me naked. That’s all.”

“Well, I learned a few things since that night.”

“Oh really?” He asks. “Like what?” He props himself up on his palms, trying to push himself back up to a sitting position, but she stops him halfway.

“Why won’t you lie back down and I will show you?”

He lets out all the air in his lungs as she takes him in her hand and starts to work him. It is nothing but the brush of her thumb across his tip at first, but it makes him sigh in pleasure, makes his eyes roll back. “I missed you.” He admits as she starts to run her hand all across his length, tip to base.

“Are you saying that because you missed me giving you hand jobs?” She asks, chuckling, her hands picking up the pace a little. She is careful, though, tries not to hurt him, and neither make him come.

“You never…” He starts, but he can’t seem to follow his line of thought through, not when she touches him like that.

“I never what?” She teases.

“You were never the one to give the hand jobs.” He manages to form a coherent thought.

“I would have to disagree with you on that one.” She smirks, then releases him completely. “Apparently we remember things quite differently.”

Foreplay is over.

Andy stands up, kicks off her underwear and helps him lose his. She climbs on top of him, making sure he knows who is in control, who is on top in this game they are playing. She is kissing him again, his hands finding her naked thighs and gripping, holding her in place, hovering just above his body.

“Condom.” He whispers. He reaches one hand to his bedside table, opening the only drawer and grabbing a little foil wrap blindly. She is quick to take it out of his hand, though, as she is considering her options.

If this is going to last only for the night, she would hate to have anything that separates her body from his.

Andy has the hand that doesn’t hold the sealed condom traveling up and down his bicep, her nails trailing four parallel lines on his skin. “I am clean.” She blurts out, looking at her hand instead of his eyes. “And I am on the pill. And I trust you, so if you say you are clean too…” She trails off, doesn’t need to finish the sentence for him to understand.

“I am clean.” He nods, reassuring her. “And if you are sure…”

“I am.” She answers with as much confidence she can gather, then sinks down into him. Her mouth falls open as she feels him all the way inside of her, filling her deep, stretching her inner muscles out. He was her first time, so she didn’t have anything to compare him to back then, and everything seemed big and kind of painful that first time, even though she knows he tried to be as gentle as he possibly could be with her.

But her memory wasn’t deceiving her apparently, because this is really, really good, maybe even better now, when she knows what to do and how to do it, after she had so many years to explore her body and her pleasure, with and without him.

She starts to move on top of him, slowly at first, taking her time, letting him match her rhythm as he thrusts upwards to meet her. Her eyes are closed, so she can’t see him as he reaches his hand to her front, but she can feel his thumb as it flickers on her clit, can feel the wave of pleasure sharp like lightning, moving from her toes to the top of her head.

“I remember you liked that.” He breathes, his voice choked.

“Well, you were the one who taught me my body is even capable of feeling this kind of pleasure. That it can feel this… This good." She picks up the pace again, only by a little, and his thrusts are deeper now, hitting just in the right spot every time, making her moan, making her head spin. “You know, none of the other men I have been with took the time to teach me, to let me explore what I like and what I don’t enjoy. They just assumed I knew, or they just didn’t care at all.”

“Andy?” He groans her name, but it is a question, so she is answering it with a hum, her hips keeping their steady motion. “I would really appreciate it if you would stop talking about other men while I am buried inside you.” He mutters, barely able to let out coherent words, his breath heavy.

She wants to tease, wants to ask him if he has become the jealous type in the fifteen years they have spent apart, but she is afraid he would take it the wrong way, and she would hate to do anything that will ruin the way she feels now, the way pleasure starts to build inside her lower belly as his fingers are relentless against her clit. So she just arches her back and goes down to take his lower lip and bite it hard between her teeth.

Then they are going faster, her head thrown back as pleasure takes over her, as every moment brings her closer to the edge. It takes only another thrust of her hips and another flicker of his thumb against her clit to earn her release. It is sharp and acute, has her calling out his name loudly as she feels her inner walls closing around him, encouraging him to follow her into his own climax. He is not done yet when she comes back from her high, and she can see him tense, can feel him so close. She moves on top of him one last time, and that does the trick, has him spilling inside of her and letting out a moan filled with relief.

“Fuck.” He whispers when he is done. He is still inside of her, neither of them feels like moving as their limbs feel heavy, but she can feel him going limp.

“I think that's the name of what we just did.” She chuckles. The tension that has been building between them for the last month is gone now, and she feels sleepy, wants to let her head rest on his chest and cuddles into him as she drifts off.

She can’t do that, she reminds herself, as the temptation is so strong that it pulls her to the other side of the bed, like two magnets pull one another. She didn’t come here to be cuddled, didn’t come for him to caress her naked shoulders and whisper sweet nothings into her ear.

She came for the sex, for the relief she just got, and now she has to leave, before she does something she will regret come morning.

“I am going to get myself cleaned up and then go.” She announces, pulling him out of her carefully. She is about to roll out of the bed, when she feels a soft hand on hers, asking her to slow down, to stop.

“I recall you liked the afterglow just as much as you liked the sex.” Robert whispers.

“You know it was different. I was your girlfriend. We lied in bed and cuddled together way before we even had sex for the first time.”

“Stay.” He requests, almost begs, and she knows that if she turns around to look at him, she will see that expression on his face, the one that is so hard to say no to.

“It was supposed to be just a one night thing, Robert.” She whispers.

“The night didn’t end yet.” He tries again. And she is tired, and being held in the arms of this man, the arms that once made her feel so safe and content... It sounds too good to be true, and not even two months back, that was Andy’s deepest wish.

And he is here now, and he is offering her to stay.

Only if for a night.

“Promise to wake me up before dawn?” She asks, then turns around to look at him. He nods, and then she adds. “Well, if I am staying, I don’t assume you have any makeup remover lying around?” She asks.

“Unfortunately, I don’t entertain that many women these days, so no, I don’t have one at hand.” He teases.

“Well, I will figure something out.” She sighs. “I am going to shower, you are more than welcome to join me if you feel like it.” It is blunt, nowhere anywhere near subtle, but she doesn’t care. He was inside of her, that means she can be forward about what she wants.

“That’s not how male biology works Andy, and you know that. I was the one to teach you that, too.”

She is halfway to the shower, as she stops in her track and turns her head back, biting down on her lower lip. He is looking straight at her ass, checking every curve of her backside. “Who said anything about you? See, I thought you can put those hands to some good use.”

When he is quick to lift himself out of the bed and join her, she chuckles, can’t help it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So as you may or may not understood from the last chapter the other part of this chapter was supposed to be Andy's first time with Robert. Is that something you would like to read? will it make you cringe? should I write and post it as the other part of this chapter or should I just move on? 
> 
> Thank you for answering!


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